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Washington's 
Nine Months at War 

Great Efforts — 
Disappointing Results — 

JVhyf 



RAYMOND B. PRICE 



Second Edition 



t 



Published by 

PATRIOTIC EDUCATION SOCIETY, Inc. 

806 Seventeenth Street, N. W. 
Washington, D. C. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

Despite all the specific and general criti- 
cisms that follow herein it is a duty and a 
pleasure to pay tribute to the high moral 
purposes and standards behind our Executive 
acts. Seldom in American history has im- 
proper personal and political influence 
counted for so little, or has conscientious 
endeavor aimed higher and striven harder. 
The failures in great part are due to poor 
organization — which furnishes the excuse for 
this pamphlet. 

RAYMOND B. PRICE 
Washington, December 31,. 1917. 






^> \ Q?f>- CONTENTS 

Introductory Note 

I. FOR OUR VERY SAFETY, 3 

German Opinion of Democracy's Leaders 
Initiative of American Business Men 
Invisible Censorship 

II. COORDINATION— THE MISSING LINK, 5 

Shipping the Greatest Need 
No Centralized Statistics 
Vital Matters Forgotten 

III. LABOR THE UNSOLVED PROBLEM, 7 

Competition for Labor 
Makeshift Labor Control 
Labor Profiteering 
Washington's Lack of Remedy- 
Belated Exemption of Skilled Labor 
Public Opinion Must Decide 

IV. BRITISH LABOR EXPERIENCE, 16 

Strikes Comparatively Few — Why 

Employer and Worker Yield Privileges — Accept Restrictions 

War Munitions Volunteers 

Women Workers 

Controlled Plants 

Training Methods 

V. BRITAIN FIRM— AMERICA HESITATING, 27 
America's Labor Plans Undeveloped 
Inadequate Appropriations 
Britain's After-the-War Activities 
United States Shipping Board Plans 
Critical Delays 
Suggestions for National Labor Policy 

VI. CAPITAL AND LABOR HAVE LOCKED HORNS, 37 
Labor Dictator Needed 

Statements by Government, Employers, Organized Labor 
The Deadlock 

VII. THE ALIEN PROBLEM, 48 

Private Citizens to the Rescue 
Government Evasion 
Ramifications of the Problem 
The Alien's Point of View 

VIII. INTELLIGENCE SERVICE, 50 
To Punish But Not to Prevent 

Thousands of Lives, Billions of Property Lost and Jeopardized 
International Advertising 

IX. CONTRACTS, 53 

General Principles 

Avoidable Profiteering 

The Public Pays 

Business Principles Challenged 



CONTENTS— Continued 

X. TRANSPORTATION, 55 

Organization by Installment 
Neglected Waterway and Highway 
Railroads Behind in Engineering 
Mr. McAdoo's Opportunity 
Dangers from Railroad Congestion 
The Railroad's Bias 

XL FUEL, 64 

Penalty for Inadequate Information 
Conservation Neglected 

Information, Skill, Men — Awaiting Leadership 
Comprehensive Foresight Needed 

XII. IMPERFECT DEMOCRACY vs. PERFECT 
AUTOCRACY, 66 

A Nation of Experts 

Germany's Spoiled Children 

Price Fixing, Priority, Non-Essential Business 

Matured Plans Lacking 

Government's Responsibility 

Experience of Others 

Using Trade Organizations 

XIII. THE COUNCIL OF NATIONAL DEFENSE, 83 

Capacity for Development 
Too Busy to Organize 
Help Not Wanted 
Heroic Efforts 

XIV. CONGRESS, APPLY THE LESSONS, 86 

Frank Public Opinion Needed 

Correct Organization Imperative 

Executives Should Welcome Sympathetic Suggestion 

Examples of Obstructions 

XV. IMPORTANCE OF PERSONNEL, 92 

Constructive and Operating Minds 
Systematically Seek Best Men for High Posts 

XVI. THE NEXT SIX MONTHS, 94 
Facing Our Fate 
"Time Is Everything" 
Our Utmost None too Much 
"Why Alarm the Public?"' 

XVII. THE GENERAL STAFF, 98 
Ours and Others 
Unity of Command 

XVIII. NO MORE HALF-MEASURES, 114 

Who Dare Oppose America's Safety? 

The Two Great Weaknesses 

What is Needed? 

What Must Be Eliminated 
Authority, 119 
The Executive Department Chart of Organization, Back Cover 



For Our Very Safety 



"Those who at present hold power in 
the great democracies have risked in 
irresponsible fashion the future of the 
peoples entrusted to their leadership." 
— General von Freytag. 



The London Times of Nov. 7th, 1917, 
reviews "Deductions from the World 
War," recently published in Germany 
by Lieutenant-General Baron von 
Freytag Loringhoven, who was Quar- 
termaster-General in the field when 
Falkenhayn was Chief of the Gen- 
eral Staff and who is now stationed in 
Berlin as Deputy Chief of the General 
Staff. The author is described as a 
"moderate" among Prussian militar- 
ists, a master of military history, a 
writer of great clearness and fai 
from being a typical Pan-Germanist 
or even a Bernhardi. 

General von Freytag argues that 
before the war Germany's armaments 
were inadequate and that in the fu- 
ture, recognizing that "facts are 
facts," still larger expenditures must 
in spite of all difficulties be made. He 
proposes giving at least partial mili- 
tary training to those who in the past 
had been rejected but who in this war 
have been found fit for service. "Only 
so can we arrive at a real peoples' 
army, in which every one has gone 
through the school of the standing 
army. It may be asked what is the 
use of all this. Will not the general 
exhaustion of Europe after the world 
conflagration of a certainty put the 
danger of a new war, to begin with, 
in the background, and does not this 
terrible murder of peoples point in- 
evitably to the necessity of disarma- 
ment to pave the way to permanent 
peace? The reply to this is that no- 



body can undertake to guarantee a 
long period of peace, and that a last- 
ing peace is guaranteed only by strong 
armaments. Moreover, world power 
is inconceivable without striving for 
expression of power in the world, and 
consequently for sea power. But that 
involves the constant existence of a 
large number of points of friction. 
Hence arises the necessity for ade- 
quate armaments on land and sea. 

"The world war affords incontro- 
vertible proof that Germany must for 
all time maintain her claim to sea 
power. 

"The fact that precisely the Presi- 
dent of the United States of North 
America has advocated the brother- 
hood of the peoples surely ought to 
frighten us. America's behavior in 
the war has shown that pacificism, as 
represented in America, is only busi- 
ness pacifism, and so at bottom noth- 
ing else than crass materialism. This 
truth is not altered by the fact that it 
is wrapped in a hazy garment of ideal- 
ism and so seeks to hide its real mean- 
ing from the innocent. Nor is the 
truth altered by the appeal to demo- 
cratic tendencies, for precisely this 
war is showing that those who at 
present hold power in the great de- 
mocracies have risked in irresponsible 
fashion the future of the peoples en- 
trusted to their leadership." 

The criticisms against incompetence 
or irresponsibility, often apparently 
justified by the facts, in each of the 



[3: 



allied countries would seem to make 
certain that all Germany agrees with 
the last sentence quoted. And if the 
German nation feel thus about democ- 
racy and its leaders our hopes of a 
peacefully democratic future for Ger- 
many seem dim. Therefore, facing a 
condition and not a theory, is it not 
our foremost duty to analyze bravely 
our own weaknesses and make unre- 
lenting effort to correct them? 

In Washington a certain business 
man who has risen to national promi- 
nence by sheer ability and industry 
has for months been trying untiringly 
to point out weaknesses which he per- 
ceived in our war organization. Suc- 
cessful as an organizer he has still 
failed with the combined help of large 
organizations to carry his conclusions 
to action on the part of our Govern- 
mental leaders. Deploring the pre- 
sent critical stage of the war and our 
relation to it, he said in a recent con- 
versation, "If the business men, or 
only a part of them, who are here in 
Washington would say frankly what 
they know and feel the nation would 
be shocked but the remedy would 
quickly arrive." And then after out- 
lining one remedy he ended, "But 
don't quote me by name because I am 
in an official position." 

Dangerous Censorship 

There is an invisible censorship, 
more dangerous than one enacted into 
written law, that muzzles brave men. 
Fostered at times by mistaken ideas 
of patriotism, encouraged perhaps by 



mental laziness, at times by political 
pressure, often by social influence, the 
truth is forced to hide its head in 
sorrow — while the Fate of the World 
hangs in the balance. 

It is proper that men in uniform 
should take what comes to them, good 
or bad, without comment, but should- 
a nation supposed to base its greatness 
upon the individualism of its citizens 
be content when those citizens best 
informed maintain silence as they 
sense disaster creeping upon them? 
The geese of ancient Rome were 
credited with a better performance. 

Even with the "official collar about 
their necks" as one often hears it ex- 
pressed in Washington, is it not con- 
ceivable that a little patriotic cooper- 
ation could have led to the formation 
of a Grievance Committee for the pur- 
pose of passing along worthy ideas to 
the President's overworked Chief Ex- 
ecutives? Out of that might not one 
reasonably expect the creation of a 
Planning Committee or Chief whose 
time clear of daily detail should be 
free to work out improvements of 
organization and plan? 

But no such result appeared, so 
apparently many of America's com- 
mercial, industrial, financial and 
other leaders must share with our ex- 
ecutives at least part of the criticism 
of the nation if our war efforts are 
found to be unequal to the need. 

Perusal of the minutes of the Coun- 
cil of National Defense might assist 
in apportioning the blame for the pur- 
pose of strengthening the weakness. 



[4] 



II 



Co-ordination — the Missing Link 



Shipping is the weakest link of our 
chain of preparations necessary to 
prevent defeat and even more neces- 
sary to win victory. This has been 
increasingly evident since last March. 
Had we possessed an adequate statis- 
tical force under control of a real Gen- 
eral Staff, or a real National Planning 
Committee or Chief, this weakest link 
would have been expressed in mathe- 
matics so convincing that not even a 
week's delay in strengthening it would 
have been tolerated by the people or 
their leaders. 

A rumor last Spring said that the 
Army War College had figured out 
the tonnage necessary to send the 
American Army to France. Some 
weeks later a Chairman of an im- 
portant Committee of the Council of 
National Defense was working fev- 
erishly to locate figures upon which to 
base his Committee's work, figures 
showing the amount of equipment and 
supply per soldier, and guns and am- 
munition needed for the American 
forces to be sent abroad, figures based 
upon experience of European forces 
but modified to suit our peculiar con- 
ditions. Many departments were 
working just as earnestly to ascertain 
the corresponding figures relating to 
their individual problems. Little cen- 
tralized effort was visible — it seemed 
to be each one for himself. Even the 
help of outside private individuals 
was sought, so little had the Govern- 
ment to offer. British, French and 
other officers and advisers came and 
went — their help only partially used. 
The wealth of foreign experience spas- 
modically tapped by individual seek- 
ers, — no comprehensive plan was ap- 
plied for obtaining the utmost of that 



wealth for the greatest number of our 
people who could help our country to 
profit by it. 

And in our ninth month at war, 
December 13, 1917, Bulletin No. 79 
of the State Councils Section of the 
Council of National Defense makes 
this ingenuous admission : 

"The immensity of the task of 
building vessels sufficient in ton- 
nage to transport our army to 
France, maintain it there, supply 
the increasing demand of our allies 
for munitions, food, and supplies, 
and at the same time overcome the 
inevitable loss from submarines, 
has been until recently lost sight of 
in our recent military, diplomatic 
and economic activities. We are 
separated by the Atlantic Ocean 
from the field of battle, and the 
fundamental fact is that without 
adequate shipping we shall be whol- 
ly unable to do our share in win- 
ning the war." 

Danger and the Remedy 
The most important single task be- 
fore us has been lost in the flood of 
detail! Is any other argument needed 
for a Planning Chief, responsible to 
the President, backed by authority, 
reinforced with statisticians and ex- 
perts, free from the departmental rou- 
tine and responsibility that unavoid- 
ably narrow the vision and restrict 
the broad action of every one of our 
Cabinet Chiefs, our Fuel, Food, Ship- 
ping and other important Executives? 

Upon whom are we relying to insure 
that we do not produce millions of 
tons of supplies and material of 
secondary importance now, and 



[5: 



neglect to send to the front the 
things they most need there im- 
mediately? 

But with shipbuilding placed in its 
position of first importance, what is 
being done to insure primary effi- 
ciency and speed in building ships? 

Our Priority of Materials Commit- 
tee, which has the authority to decide 
what materials and products shall 



have precedence in transportation and 
production, admit that nearly every- 
thing (80 to 85% in some districts, it 
is said) is now in the A class, so in 
fact priority means little. However, 
the shipbuilders appear satisfied that 
they can obtain their structural 
shapes, the ship plates, the engines, 
boilers and auxiliaries they need with 
the conditions and control already in 
sight. 



[6] 



Ill 
Labor the Unsolved Problem 



Priority of labor is another matter. 
The manager of a shipbuilding plant 
in the Chesapeake Bay district has 
recently stated that certain skilled 
labor in his plant has been receiving 
$30 per week but constructors on War 
Department work in the neighborhood 
are now paying $70 for the same class 
of labor in order to speed their con- 
struction, hence shipbuilding suffers. 
Shipbuilders on the Delaware and else- 
where have been forced to bid against 
Government and private employers 
both to hold their old workmen and to 
increase their staffs. New shipyards 
have made a specialty of enticing by 
fabulous rewards the best workmen 
and executives from old shipyards. 

According to Burton J. Hendrick in 
The World's Work of December, 1917, 
riveters are receiving from $57 to 
$172 per week. He says further "the 
one basic fact is that we have plenty 
of skilled workmen in the United 
States. The problem resolves itself 
merely into one of recruitment and or- 
ganization. At present these skilled 
mechanics are making pleasure auto- 
mobiles or engaged in a thousand in- 
dustries that only remotely assist our 
military operations. These men should 
be taken from unnecessary occupations 
and stationed in the shipyards * * * 
At present our national army contains 
many thousands of skilled mechanics. 
"A man in a shipyard is worth three 
in the trenches," says Mr. Hurley. 
The one fact that stands out above all 
others is that only the Federal Gov- 
ernment itself can handle this labor 
problem. Under the private competi- 
tive system these yards will never get 
their 500,000 shipbuilders. We • can 
no more build up an industrial army 



by private initiative that we can build 
up our military and naval forces in the 
same way." 

Mr. Hendrick proposes controlling 
shipworkers' wages in districts arbi- 
trarily delimited. Even so, what is to 
prevent private or government com- 
petition from emptying those yards? 

Another student of the labor and 
shipbuilding situation writes as fol- 
lows: 

Reasons for Delay in the 
Production of Ships 

"Increase in Cost of Labor and Mate- 
rials. Practically all contractors for 
ships (and this applies to con- 
tractors for war materials of all 
sorts) have objected to signing con- 
tracts on a fixed sum basis for the 
reason that they have been uncer- 
tain as to what prices they might 
have to pay for labor and raw 
materials. This has resulted in 
great delays in the signing of con- 
tracts. The increase in the cost 
of raw materials is itself directly 
due to increased wages paid to the 
workmen producing these raw ma- 
terials. The increase in the wages 
demanded by workingmen actually 
engaged in the production of ships 
has been very great. 

Strikes. Increases in the cost of 
labor in nearly every industry in 
the country have been the result 
of strikes instituted and encouraged 
in almost every case by leaders of 
organized labor. 

Increase in Cost of Ships. In- 
creases in wages have been respon- 
sible for increasing the cost to the 
people of the United States to sev- 



[7] 



eral times their normal cost of 
munitions, aeroplanes and the like. 
Ships now cost over $160 per dead- 
weight ton that could formerly be 
built in this country for $40 to $50 
per deadweight ton and in Euro- 
pean countries for as low as $30 
per deadweight ton. On an order 
of 6,000,000 gross tons of shipping 
the added cost to the people of the 
United States is about $900,000,- 
000 over what it would be under 
normal conditions. Similar condi- 
tions in all war industries exist, 
thus showing why. our appropria- 
tions are so much more than those 
of our allies. 

Attitude of Organized Labor. 
The attitude of organized labor is 
best shown in brief by the words 
of James McConnell, President of 
the National Boiler Makers' Union 
publicly stated to the effect that 
workmen were urged by him not 
to stand behind the President but 
to "stand behind themselves" by de- 
manding wage increases not of 
"cents" but of "dollars." 

Investigation properly made will 
show that workmen have been ac- 
tually encouraged in their demands 
for more wages by the representa- 
tives of the Department of Labor 
itself. This occurred during the 
recent strikes in the various ship- 
yards in the Port of New York. 

Public Opinion Needed 

"The demands for higher wages 
that have been made by workmen 
have not been due to the high cost 
of living except possibly in a few 
instances. This can be proved by 
consulting the payrolls and records 
of various shipyards, which will in- 
dicate that large numbers of work- 
men have been receiving such high 
wages that they will not work for 
the full number of working days 



per week. This fact effectually dis- 
proves the claim of organized labor 
that higher wages are required to 
meet the higher cost of living. 

In order to hold workmen in their 
shipyards, contractors have been 
forced to pay almost any wages de- 
manded. From conditions reported 
to the Navy Department in the case 
of five yards, it can be shown that 
on a tonnage of approximately 
35,000 tons this serious condition 
rendered possible a loss to the Gov- 
ernment in labor charges alone of 
approximately $3,600,000. On an 
order for 6,000,000 tons of ships this 
would represent a loss to the people 
of approximately $600,000,000. The 
wages of workmen doing the same 
work at different yards all in the 
same vicinity vary as much as 40%. 

The average workman does only 
about 1-3 to 1-2 as much work per 
day as he is physically capable of 
doing. Were all the workmen in ship- 
yards and other war industries edu- 
cated to the full realization of their 
patriotic duty they could thus turn 
out two or three times as much work 
per day as they ordinarily turn out. 
Had publicity measures similar to 
those used in promoting the sale of 
Liberty Bonds been put into opera- 
tion in all industrial plants produc- 
ing war materials, the production 
could have been stimulated several 
times without any increase in 
force." 

Does Delay Help? 

It becomes increasingly clear that im- 
provement in the labor field cannot be 
expected until some semblance of a 
unified national policy and action ap- 
pears. Labor unrest must increase as 
long as the suspicion is justified that 
unreasonable profiteering is at all 
prevalent. 



[8] 



The Farmers' Non-Partisan League 
last Summer prepared a book to show 
the iniquities of Capital, its perver- 
sion of public opinion by extensive 
advertising campaigns conducted by 
railroads, packers and large corpora- 
tions, the political influence unduly 
exerted by bankers and other "promi- 
nent citizens." The leaders of the 
League and many farmers were re- 
ported by an investigator to believe 
that Capital rather than Germany is 
their real enemy. 

Britain met this condition by taking 
80% of the war profits. One of 
her best-informed leaders predicts that 
this tax will never be removed. 

When the worker sees his restless 
neighbor repeatedly changing his oc- 
cupation for higher wages, the steady 
man must begin to wonder who is 
looking out for his interest. The 
small-salaried employee is especially 
helpless. 

Under a proper system of employ- 
ment exchanges it seems reasonable 
to believe that workers skilled in cer- 
tain trades not especially needed could 
be rapidly transferred to the more im- 
portant trades provided they were as- 
sured their established wages, plus 
whatever additional expense might ac- 
crue from their change of location, 
considering relative living costs, and 
provided also that equivalent comforts 
were offered to them in their new loca- 
tion. When conditions do not furnish 
equivalent comfort or convenience spe- 
cial reward in the form of additional 
compensation could be legitimately 
provided. 

The testimony of our Shipping 
Board executives before the Congres- 
sional Committee illustrates the dan- 
ger of having no permanent mechan- 
ism charged with studying delays and 
obstacles and placing the remedy in 
the hands of those authorized to 
apply it. 



If President Wilson, or Congress, or 
the country had been persistently told 
by the Shipping Board or the Emer- 
gency Fleet Corporation to what ex- 
tent lack of housing and transpor- 
tation facilities was hindering ship 
construction is it conceivable that ade- 
quate commandeering powers, or spe- 
cial laws or instructions would have 
been long withheld? 

Labor Regulation Vital 

Irregularity of employment has in 
the past been considered our worst in- 
dustrial evil. There is, of course, no 
excuse for continuation of that evil 
while the whole world is confronted 
with a shortage of labor. Until our 
Federal Government is able intelligent- 
ly to direct the ebb and flow of labor, 
it must fail to meet our war needs. 
Thoroughly coordinated employment 
exchanges, adequate statistics kept up 
to date, comprehensive information as 
to the relative importance of labor 
shortage in various fields are indis- 
pensable to meet this situation. 

In addition, both the public and the 
Government are warranted in demand- 
ing of employer and employed that 
each shall live up to his agreements, 
that each shall insist upon having re- 
sponsible leadership, that each shall 
stand united against unfair demands 
and unfair conditions. 

In the last analysis the unbiased 
public must decide what is unreason- 
able and what is unjust. Above all, 
it must not tolerate any procrastina- 
tion in investigation or settlement of 
labor difficulties, for both Britain and 
Australia have pointed out the su- 
preme importance of speed in such 
matters. 

The public also must insist upon each 
side acquiring sympathy for the diffi- 
culties of the other side. In many 
communities today comprehensive 
study of the minimum scale of living 



[9] 



commensurate with good citizenship 
and good work is well under way. 

If our Trade Unions, instead of en- 
deavoring to limit the number of ap- 
prentices and output per man, would 
endeavor with equal earnestness to 
stimulate their members, to educate 
them to a sense of their importance 
and responsibilities, to understand 
and apply proven economic principles, 
there would be less opposition to the 
extension of labor organizations in 
America by employers who find it 
easier to fight the spread of labor or- 
ganizations than to stop the abuses 
which too often appear after organiza- 
tion has been effected. 

Exemption of Skilled Workers 

The British when they learned the 
imperative need for skilled workers at 
home endeavored to recall them from 
the army. As records were lacking 
showing completely the past experi- 
ence of her soldiers only part of her 
skilled men at the front could be lo- 
cated. Many preferred to fight and 
so did not voluntarily report their skill. 
Their officers, finding the skilled work- 
ers made excellent and useful soldiers, 
connived to keep them in the trenches. 
This sad experience was freely re- 
ported in Washington by various Brit- 
ish visitors. Last Spring when our 
Army and Navy were being recruited 
by volunteers letters were sent to 
Washington complaining of the enlist- 
ment of skilled shipworkers east and 
west. Early in May Secretary Baker, 
speaking as Chairman of the Council 
of National Defense, told the Govern- 
ors and their representatives, then as- 
sembled in Washington, that about 
600,000 volunteer recruits were still 
needed to fill the Regular Army, Na- 
tional Guard and the Navy and no ex- 
emption plan was contemplated. When 
the draft plan was worked out only 



partial provision was made to locate 
the skilled men, and many important 
war industries, including shipbuilding, 
are now said to be suffering from loss 
of important men drafted. Over 
1,500,000 men have been almost indis- 
criminately withdrawn from indus- 
try while Government and citizens vie 
with each other in increasing the 
difficulty. 

With a well-informed Planning 
Chief having the ear of the President, 
is it likely that this fundamental weak- 
ness could have been so long tolerated ? 

What Remedy Is in Sight? 

The Bulletin Number 79 previously 
quoted further says: 

"The work asked of the State 
Councils will in a general way be in 
three stages. 
The first stage will be : 

(a) To make certain that the con- 
ditions in and about the yards 
are ready for an influx of me- 
chanics. (This will include 
assistance in improving hous- 

. ing conditions and the utiliza- 
tion of the system of employ- 
ment exchanges now being 
developed, about which you 
have already been advised by 
this Section.) 

(b) To create the feeling in ship- 
yard communities that ship 
construction is of the highest 
importance, and that the arti- 
sans in the shipyards must re- 
ceive recognition from the pub- 
lic as patriotic members of the 
community, entitled to good 
living conditions, hospitable 
reception, and entertainment. 
(The Government recognizes 
the work as patriotic by treat- 
ing the service as parallel 
with that of the Army and 
Navy, as no men will be with- 



[i°: 



drawn from this work for the 
Army or Navy, a fact that 
should be widely published dur- 
ing each stage of the work.) 

The second stage will be a cam- 
paign to recruit men already in ship- 
building trades for immediate em- 
ployment in the yards. 
The third stage will be : 

(a) To continue the recruiting of 
trained shipyard workers. 

(b) To obtain artisans skilled in 
related trades and train them 
in ship construction under 
service conditions, means for 
which will shortly be installed 
in the larger shipyards. 

In all this work, this Section and 
the State Councils are to have the 
cooperation of the Labor Depart- 
ment's War Emergency Employ- 
ment Service (including the Public 
Service Reserve, and the system of 
Federal and State Employment ex- 
changes organized in accordance 
with our letter to State Councils un- 
der date of December 8, 1917), the 
Woman's Committee, the United 
States Chamber of Commerce, the 
Federal Board for Vocational Edu- 
cation, the Division of Films of the 
Committee on Public Information, 
the Housing Committee of the 
Council of National Defense, and 
local housing committees. 

Living conditions in some ship- 
building communities are such that 
the second stage of the work may 
be entered upon at once, and at such 
points the State Councils will be 
asked shortly to begin recruiting. 
In all other places, the first work of 
the State Councils will be to see 
that their local committees work 
with Federal agencies in study- 
ing and improving housing and 
living conditions and by publicity 



to create a favorable community 
sentiment. 

As a first definite step, we ask 
you now to appoint or designate a 
committee to take charge of all 
State Council work in connection 
with shipbuilding. 

On such committee we suggest 
representation as follows: 

(1) An employer, known for his 
fairness. 

(2) A representative of labor, 
known for his fairness. 

(3) A representative of the State 
Division of the Woman's Com- 
mittee. 

(4) A publisher. 

(5) A college president, a dean of 
a college, or a prominent econ- 
omist. 

(6) A publicist. 

Of these, the first three are 
deemed essential. Discretion can 
be used as to the balance of the 
suggestions, also as to the number 
constituting the committee." 



What Hope? 

Is one justified in expecting speedy 
settlement of our labor uncertainties 
by such complicated and experimental 
efforts at coordination and control? 

The following bulletin was recently 
issued by the Patriotic Education 
Society : 

Wanted— A Labor Policy 

"Mr. Asquith, ex-Prime Minister of 
Great Britain, in the House of Com- 
mons last month stated that labor is 
the keynote of the British war sit- 
uation. In this country at the pres- 
ent time is a small group of En- 
glishmen who have had general ex- 
perience with the labor problems of 
Great Britain in connection with 



[11 



the British Ministry of Munitions. 
Captain Asquith, one of the mem- 
bers of this group, has prepared a 
condensed memorandum outlining 
some of the chief lessons the Brit- 
ish have learned relating to these 
problems. This memorandum 
starts: 'The main problem of the 
war in England has proved to be 
that of man-power.' 

In November, 1916, at one of the 
darkest periods of Britain's war ex- 
perience, when Russia's adherence 
to her Allies was uncertain, a seri- 
ous discussion occurred in Parlia- 
ment and in the press over the ad- 
visability of pledging the nation's 
credit for the rehousing of the 
working people of Great Britain. 

As a result of the government 
control of munition plants, a unit 
of measurement was developed 
which for the first time in indus- 
trial history on a large scale made 
it possible for Great Britain to 
measure the effect on her working 
population of hours of labor per 
day, days of labor per week, hot 
lunches, sanitary working and liv- 
ing conditions, periods for rest, and 
many other items. As a result it 
became possible to measure in 
pounds, shillings and pence the ef- 
fect of working and living condi- 
tions on the human being and on 
production. 

In the United States, out of a 
population of say 110,000,000, are 
2,000,000 organized workers. In 
Great Britain, out of a population 
of 46,000,000 are 4,500,000 members 
of trade unions. A series of na- 
tional strikes in Great Britain re- 
sulted before the war in an organ- 
ized development of trade unions 
and of employers' associations, so 
that when the war started the gov- 
ernment was able to step in and 
work with capital and with labor as 



units, instead of with a heterogene- 
ous group of workers and em- 
ployers. 

In September, 1916, when the 
British railway workers demanded 
an increase of wages, surprisingly 
accurate statistics were produced 
showing that in the two years and 
one month since the beginning of 
the war the cost of living for that 
class of workers had increased, ac- 
cording to our recollection, 54%; 
whereas their wages had been ad- 
vanced, for instance, 25 to 30%. 
Needless to say, on this mathemati- 
cal showing an increase of wages 
was granted and fully indorsed by 
public opinion. 

In America over 10% of all work- 
ing people are always out of work, 
on the average; this being due 
chiefly to seasonal employment and 
similar inefficiencies. Through sick- 
ness each one of 'our 30,000,000 
workers loses on an average nine 
days per year, causing a monetary 
loss of $700,000,000. 

The following facts are compiled 
by C. E. Knoeppel, Efficiency Engi- 
neer, of 101 Park Avenue, New 
York: "700,000 workers are in- 
jured yearly and 35,000 workers are 
killed in industry every year. Mrs. 
Carrie Chapman Catt says of the 
millions of pupils entering grade 
schools yearly one-half never finish 
the course, 5% enter high school, 1-8 
of 1% go to technical schools, and 
about 4-5 of 1% get a college train- 
ing. Our average unemployment 
prior to the war was 14% as against 
8% in Great Britain and 2% in Ger- 
many. Six hundred thousand per- 
sons die annually from preventable 
diseases. Of 300,000 infants that 
die each year it is estimated that 
one-half could be saved by measures 
within the control of their commu- 
nities. United States Health Bulle- 



[12; 



tin No. 76 says that between 1900 
and 1913 the average retail prices 
of food increased 60%, while during 
the same period wages increased 
30%. Our annual income of $35,- 
000,000,000 shows the largest pro- 
portionate increase of any nation, 
yet we rank fifteenth in the relative 
number of savings bank accounts. 
Charles P. McNeil, Chairman of 
the Committee on Labor Exchanges, 
in a report to the Chamber of Com- 
merce of the United States, says 
that for twelve manufacturing es- 
tablishments employing 40,000 men, 
the loss in one year from discharg- 
ing men and employing substitutes 
was $831,000, with no advantages as 
an offset. It is estimated that the an- 
nual waste from preventable death 
and disease is $1,500,000,000." 

There is an enormous labor re- 
serve in this country which should 
be drawn upon in these times of 
stress. The East Side in New York 
has a large supply. Mr. Wood, Pres- 
ident of the American Woolen Com- 
pany, was recently deploring the dif- 
ficulty of obtaining sufficient labor. 
These reserve supplies were men- 
tioned to him, and upon reflection 
he agreed that they actually exist, 
and pointed out that in one of his 
factories he had recently installed 
an escalator, or moving stairway, 
with the result that some women 
who had not worked in his factory 
before were now able to do so. Mr. 
E. N. Hurley, of the United States 
Shipping Board, recently returned 
from a tour of important shipbuild- 
ing yards and stated that some of 
those yards had only 50% of the 
labor they needed. 

Great Britain has a national em- 
ployment bureau reaching to every 
town and hamlet. The ebb and flow 
of labor is directed and controlled 
through that employment exchange. 

[13] 



In our country the Departments of 
Labor and Agriculture, War and 
Navy, the Council of National De- 
fense, the Shipping Board, the Fuel 
and Food Dictators. — all have labor 
committees and problems, but there 
is no real coordination. In the De- 
partment of Labor itself are two 
rival employment establishments. 
One, headed by Mr. Caminetti, 
Chief of the Bureau of Immigra- 
tion, controls the 93 employment ex- 
changes operated by the government 
in different parts of the country. 
The United States Public Service 
Reserve is attempting to list and 
make available for national service 
the labor, unskilled, skilled and pro- 
fessional, of this country. This 
latter mechanism was established 
by private initiative and largely 
with private funds. An effort was 
made to obtain an appropriation of 
$750,000 from the recent Congress 
for a national labor bureau. This 
was opposed, according to common 
report, by the Bureau of Immigra- 
tion, and it was only at the last min- 
ute, largely through private initia- 
tive, that an appropriation of 
$250,000 was made available for this 
work. But the bill provided that 
existing institutions should be pre- 
served. Under these conditions Mr. 
Caminetti cannot be "merged" into 
one homogeneous department of the 
Department of Labor. 

We have no adequate record of 
strikes, and in August an investiga- 
tion showed that the Department of 
Labor had fewer investigators to 
study strike problems and settle- 
ments than it had June 1st, owing 
to lack of appropriations. 

Major-General Maurice, Director 
of British Military Operations, is 
recently reported as having shown 
that the shipment of British war 
supplies into France from January 



to September, 1917, increased in the 
proportion of 245 to 114, the ton- 
nage and human labor problem thus 
more than doubling in eight months. 
One of the leading British labor ex- 
perts of the British Ministry of 
Munitions, himself a wealthy em- 
ployer of labor, is reported to have 
said recently that America is twen- 
ty years behind the times in labor 
matters. In Great Britain the man 
who cannot change his mind over 
night is hopelessly behind. 

The world is just beginning to 
recognize generally that human be- 
ings have inherent rights which 
cannot be morally balanced against 
the rights of capital. German pat- 
riotism has been founded largely 
upon Bismarck's far-sighted policy 
which recognized the right of man 
to work, to shelter, to reasonable 
living conditions, and to freedom 
from worry against illness and old 
age. The man with only a dime in 
his pocket is no match against the 
capitalist. The organized labor 
movement has been essentially an 
uplifting movement. In a democ- 
racy every individual belongs to the 
ruling class, and a ruler who is too 
tired, too worried or too ill to per- 
form his functions is a menace to 
the country. That there have been 
abuses in the name of organized la- 
bor is unquestioned, and so there 
have been abuses in the name of lib- 
erty and of religion. The excesses 
of the French Bevolution are no ar- 
gument against democracy. Leisure, 
liberty and leadership all need expe- 
rience and practice. The great unbi- 
ased American public opinion must 
be the arbiter as to what labor may 
justly demand and what privileges 
capital may retain and must yield. 

Sociological changes have re- 
sulted from this war, of importance 
and scope far beyond what is gen- 

[14; 



erally appreciated in America. For 
the very safety of the nation and 
the winning of this war American 
public opinion must be directed to 
the fundamentals involved in order 
that it may take a firm and unyield- 
ing stand against abuse on the part 
of both employer and employee, and ' 
in favor of justice to both. It is 
neither safe nor fair to expect the 
biased parties themselves to hold 
the balance of power. As Justice 
Louis D. Brandeis has so well said, 
"Neither our intelligence nor our 
characters can long stand the strain 
of unrestrained power." 

To avoid the jealousies, inertia 
and difficulties of attempting to con- 
trol the labor problem through any 
established peace-time department, 
and because the matter is even more 
important than that which caused 
the creation of a food, fuel and a 
shipping dictator, the time may 
come when it will be necessary for 
the public to demand a labor dicta- 
tor for the period of the war — one 
who can show the public what the 
worker may justly demand, what 
the employer under the new world 
conditions may hold, and v/hat he 
must yield ; one who can organize a 
national employment bureau capable 
of satisfying national employment 
needs ; one who can develop a statis- 
tical force, backed with adequate 
financial support, to study continu- 
ally the changing cost of living for 
the various workers in each section 
of the country in comparison with 
wages; so that fact, instead of 
guesswork, hunger and strikes, may 
be the basis of the square deal. Such 
statistics, coupled with Federal 
Trade Commission figures showing 
the cost of production, would put 
much of the labor problem in math- 
ematical form, so that he who runs 
may read." 



Labor Troubles Not 
Recorded 

It is variously estimated that since 
America entered the war there have 
been from three to five thousand 
strikes in this country. Who can say 
at this moment whether those strikes 
have not already seriously threatened 
the victory of our cause and at best 
have immeasurably postponed it and 
increased the cost? Certain it is that 
without harmonious action on the part 
of worker, employer, the Government 
and the public our utmost war efforts 
must fail. There are at least eight 
major labor committees heading up 
to various cabinet chiefs and the 



Administrators. Today we know that 
our greatest need is ships, but, be- 
cause the labor factor is the weakest 
spot in our shipbuilding program, we 
must especially focus attention upon 
the shipbuilding labor situation. 

It is obvious to all who have inves- 
tigated that no important phase of the 
labor situation can be considered with- 
out including the other important 
phases. Thus the fact that in New 
York several theatres, hotels, and 
many office buildings are being con- 
structed at the present time has a dis- 
tinct bearing upon the scarcity of 
skilled labor readily available for ship- 
building. 



[15] 



IV 



British Labor Experience 



Sir Stevenson Kent, Director Gen- 
eral of the British Labor Supply De- 
partment of the Ministry of Muni- 
tions, accompanied by several other 
labor experts, has been in this country 
for several months and has placed at 
the disposal of Americans the experi- 
ence Great Britain has had in connec- 
tion with labor since the war began. 
Sir Stevenson has recently been 
quoted as saying: 

"If Great Britain had had one- 
eighth of the number of labor troubles 
in the past two years that the United 
States has had, my country would 
have had to conclude a disgraceful 
peace with Germany by this time. 
Since coming here two months ago I 
have noted serious strikes and threats 
of strikes in different parts of the 
United States. Not only does such a 
state of affairs indicate trouble in 
this country, but it cannot fail to af- 
fect seriously Great Britain and the 
other Allies." 

H. W. Garrod, Deputy Assistant of 
the British Labor Regulation Depart- 
ment, one of his companions, is quoted 
thus: 

"In every city that we have visited 
in the United States we have tried to 
put one fact of our experience before 
you — (that no nation under modern 
conditions can possibly hope to carry 
through a great war, such as the pres- 
ent, unless it can maintain industrial 
peace at home. I say that because 
since we have been in this country, a 
matter of about two months, there 
have occurred a number of very seri- 
ous industrial disturbances. If one- 
eighth of those troubles had occurred 
in England during the whole period 
of the three years that we have been 



at war, we should have had to make, 
long ago, a disgraceful peace." 

Some employers of labor have shown . 
indifference to the British experience, 
claiming that American conditions 
were so different from those of Great 
Britain that little benefit could result 
from comparisons. Whether or not 
this is true it is evident that the Brit- 
ish government quickly recognized 
the importance of labor, took labor 
into close confidence and partnership, 
and based all of its activities and 
future plans upon that partnership. 

The Industrial Bureau of the Mer- 
chants' Association of New York has 
prepared a condensed summary of the 
British Labor regulations and this 
seems sufficiently illuminating to 
quote in full: 

How British Industry Was 
Adapted to the War 

"In England the method of agree- 
ment, the method of conference, has 
ordinarily been employed in draw- 
ing up industrial legislation affect- 
ing employer and employee. It 
has never been considered possible 
to introduce drastic legislation on 
labor questions unless the consent 
in general of the parties to be af- 
fected by the legislation could first 
be obtained. 

Government, Employers, Employed 

There are in England great fed- 
erations of employers. All large 
machine shops there belong to fed- 
erations of this nature. Moreover, 
the greater part of labor belongs to 
labor organizations. Consequently, 
when planning any labor legisla- 



te] 



tion, they have first brought togeth- 
er in London the representatives 
of the trades concerned — the per- 
sons who could speak authoritative- 
ly for the great employing federa- 
tions and the persons who could 
speak for the trade unions affected. 
This was the method particularly 
adopted in March, 1915, when the 
labor situation in England was very 
serious. The Ministry called to- 
gether in one room representatives 
of the employers who were directly 
concerned with the manufacture 
of munitions and the heads of the 
principal trade unions. During 
that conference they arrived at the 
Treasury Agreement which was 
subsequently embodied in the Muni- 
tions of War Act. This Act is the 
legislation by agreement between 
government, capital and labor. It 
covers practically everything that 
could be manufactured for war pur- 
pose. There was not a single clause 
in it that had not been the subject 
of discussion and agreement be- 
tween those three interests. 

Features of the British Agreement 

The following were the principal 
features of this agreement: 

(1) The Minister of Munitions 
received power to control factories 
engaged principally on the manu- 
facture of munitions. The control 
of these factories amounted to a 
right of the Minister of Munitions 
to take the plant over altogether 
from the owners. That right has 
been rarely exercised and exercised 
only when the management failed 
to comply with the requirements of 
the Government. Such cases have 
been very exceptional, probably 
only two or three in number. As a 
part of his powers in regard .to 
these factories (and this actually 



became law) the Minister of Muni- 
tions has definite authority to limit 
the profits of such plants. The 
profits were limited to an increase 
of one-fifth over an average of the 
profits of the two years preceding 
the war. 

(2) The trade unions agreed 
that in view of the fact that a defi- 
nite limitation had been put on 
profits, the wages of the employees 
should be fixed at the rates which 
existed at that time. There was to 
be no fluctuation upwards or down- 
wards in the wages except by con- 
sent of the Minister of Munitions. 
It was agreed that neither capital 
nor labor should make a profit out 
of the Nation's needs. The Govern- 
ment, having fixed wages, appreci- 
ated that it became its duty to see 
that the labor so dealt with should 
not suffer from the increased cost 
of living. It set up a Committee on 
Production. One of the duties of 
this Committee consisted in hearing 
evidence' as to the increased cost of 
living three times every year. Evi- 
dence is brought before it by trade 
unions' officials or any one con- 
cerned, and the Committee has all 
the Government statistics in regard 
to the increased cost of the neces- 
sities of life. Assuming that the 
living costs have gone up, the Com- 
mittee then makes (in the nature 
of a war bonus) a national award 
to all employees on war work, pay- 
able by the employer, but to be re- 
covered from the Government. 

(3) Strikes and lockouts became 
illegal and arbitration became com- 
pulsory. It was agreed that any 
trade disputes in war industries 
should, for the period of the war, be 
submitted compulsorily to arbitra- 
tion, which the Government should 
arrange. A strike or lockout in 



[17] 



peace time was looked upon as more 
or less a domestic matter. The 
Government rarely interfered, and 
only when it became a widespread 
inconvenience. However, the Gov- 
ernment took the view that its 
duties in peace time and war time 
were very different. It took the 
view that it could not tolerate in- 
terruption of supplies resulting 
from differences between employers 
and employees. It took the view 
that its duty was to interfere be- 
tween the employers and employees 
to prevent interruption of supplies 
vital to the success of the armies. 
The Government viewed this matter 
with such gravity that power was 
granted by the Act to imprison for 
life any one who incited to strikes 
or interfered with the operation of 
the agreement. It has never be- 
come necessary to enforce this pen- 
alty. Public opinion has generally 
enforced the act very effectively. 
(4) The trade unions agreed to 
waive all their practices_ and cus- 
toms which tended to restrict either 
employment or output, such as the 
employment of only union labor, 
and the use of only skilled persons 
on skilled jobs; and they promised 
to do their utmost to see that the 
agreement was carried through. 
They agreed also that any person, 
man or woman, would be allowed to 
do any kind of work. In return for 
these important concessions the 
Government pledged itself to re- 
store pre-war conditions in shops 
after the war. The trade unions, 
their leaders, and the rank and file, 
have abided very loyally by that 
agreement and act. 

Compulsory Arbitration 

The First Munitions of War Act, 
which was passed about a month 



after the Agreement was made, set 
up machinery for compulsory arbi- 
tration. Despite this system of 
compulsory arbitration, it would be 
misleading to say that there have 
not been labor troubles or strikes, 
but there have been only three 
strikes which have had to be re- 
garded as serious, and of these none 
has lasted more than a week. Not 
a strike has arisen for higher 
wages since the war began. More- 
over, there has not been a single 
strike in which the responsible 
trade union officials have not stood 
side by side with the Government 
and done their utmost to bring 
every man back to work at the 
earliest possible moment. 

One of 'the lessons which has 
been learned in England is that the 
war is a war of the civil organi- 
zations — of mechanism and me- 
chanics, of the machine shop and 
the factory — just as much as it is 
a war of the army. Organization 
of industry at home must be as 
complete and thorough as at the 
front. If one leaves organization 
at home to chance, he imperils the 
army. Industrial peace at home, 
continuity of supplies, and ever- 
increasing output — these things are 
vital if this war is to be carried 
through to a successful conclusion. 

When War Took the Men 

They had in England a very big 
drain on their man power in the 
very early part of the war. Under 
the system of voluntary enlistment 
they lost skilled mechanics in large 
numbers. Mechanics went into the 
army and their skill was not util- 
ized; they were used up in the 
trenches. That was a mistake, be- 
cause if there is one certainty it is 
this — that neither in America nor 



is 



England is there a sufficiency of 
skilled mechanics. England has had 
to make numberless shifts and use 
people, women and men, whom she 
would very much prefer not to have 
employed on any of the tasks in 
which they are engaged today. One 
of the reasons England has been 
compelled to make use of these 
makeshifts is that the skill of her 
mechanics was misused in the early 
days of the war. 

Economy Is Necessary 

Every kind of economy is neces- 
sary today, the economy of raw ma- 
terial and of man power being the 
two most important. Economy of 
raw material and of man power in 
England was brought about by a 
system of licenses and laws. En- 
gland has a very complete and com- 
prehensive system of licensing and 
priority. No raw material that is 
essential for the production of war 
materials can be used or bought 
by anybody except under license. 
If a manufacturer desires to buy 
steel, or lead, or iron, or aluminum, 
or anything of that type, he has 
to make application to the Ministry 
of Munitions and to state why he 
wishes to purchase it. If the pur- 
pose stated is not essential for the 
army or navy in winning the war, 
the license is refused. What hap- 
pened is this: The non-essential 
plant which was in the habit of us- 
ing steel or other metals had its 
license refused. The employer then 
could either close his plant or trans- 
form it for the purpose of under- 
taking war work for the Govern- 
ment. In England, it must be 
understood, they did not have a 
sufficiency of plants or output, and 
they had to find them both as soon 
as possible. By a system of indirect 

[19] 



compulsion, therefore, they trans- 
formed the shops from civil work 
to Government work and they em- 
ployed the same man power on war 
work. 

The Shifting of Labor 

The shifting of labor from estab- 
lishment to establishment, from 
work of great importance to work 
of less importance, from war work 
to civil work, has been checked by 
a system of licenses. 

No non-essential industry which 
uses materials essential for war 
purposes or employs labor which 
could be used in the manufacture 
of munitions now exists in En- 
gland. Therefore, there is little 
risk of labor, which is engaged in 
the manufacture of munitions, leav- 
ing for civil work. 

It was soon found in England 
that some manufacturers had taken 
on orders that could not be filled 
without a large increase in their 
labor force. Accordingly, such 
manufacturers had set about get- 
ting the necessary workmen in the 
most uneconomic way possible, that 
is, they tried to get labor from 
other plants. A system of labor 
auctioneering and enticement was 
found to be going on all over the 
country. This situation was ended 
by two regulations under the De- 
fense of the Kealm Act, which 
stated in effect that: 

(1) No employer in the engin- 
eering industry (machine shops and 
other metal-working plants) should 
offer an enticement or endeavor to 
entice away an employee from any 
other employer in that industry. 
Should he do this, he was liable to 
a heavy penalty. 

(2) The Ministry of Munitions 
was empowered to regulate and 



restrict the employment of labor in 
any factory. If an employer offers 
an enticement to other labor, or if 
he is found using the labor he has 
in an uneconomic way (holding 
labor for future contracts or using 
a skilled man on a machine which 
a less skilled man could operate), 
an embargo is laid on that firm and 
it is not permitted to engage any 
labor of any sort except under li- 
cense from the Ministry of Muni- 
tions. In this way a plant can be 
watched and the man power in that 
plant can be economized as much 
as possible. 

The Employment of Women 

The expedients which were adop- 
ted to deal with the shortage of 
labor were the dilution of skilled 
labor and the substitution of wo- 
men for men. Both were contrary to 
trade union practices and customs 
as they existed before the war, 
and were made possible only by the 
agreement between capital and la- 
bor. Employers brought unskilled 
workers, men and women, into their 
plants, put them on the easy jobs, 
promoted the men on the easy jobs 
to more skilled work, and in turn 
promoted those they succeeded. A 
case which occurred recently might 
be mentioned as an example of that 
process. A steel plant in Wales had 
put up some new furnaces and the 
Ministry was unable to supply suffi- 
cient skilled or unskilled men to 
operate these furnaces. Sixty-seven 
women were employed. They did 
not work the furnaces, but they re- 
placed a corresponding number of 
laborers in the plant doing wheel- 
ing, unloading and loading of 
bricks and other material, break- 
ing limestone, etc. The laborers 
so released were put on the lowest 



skilled jobs in the plant — fourth- 
hand melters and mixers — the 
fourth-hand melters and mixers 
were promoted to be third-hand 
melters and mixers, and so on until 
a full staff had been created for the 
new furnaces. In other cases, 
skilled men who were neither over 
military age nor physically disqual- 
ified for the army were brought 
from the non-essential trades. For 
illustration — sanitary plumbers 
were trained to do lead burning for 
explosive factories ; machinists 
were taken from textile trades and 
trained to do finer work on muni- 
tions. 

Another system operated to con- 
fine the skilled man to the work 
which only a skilled man can do. 
If a skilled mechanic normally had 
been on a job which could be split 
up into two or three parts, he was 
confined to the part of the job re- 
quiring higher skill. 

War Munitions Volunteers 

The War Munitions Volunteers 
system has been of tremendous as- 
sistance to England in stabilizing 
the labor supply and in controlling 
priority of labor on war work. 

The War Munitions Volunteers 
are skilled workmen who have of- 
fered their services to the Min- 
istry of Munitions for the duration 
of the war. They constitute a mo- 
bile force — now numbering about 
200,000 — which can be shifted into 
any form of munitions work that 
the Ministry considers especially 
vital at any given time. 

Workmen have become members 
of the War Munitions Volunteers 
because of the appeal of patriotism 
and because membership carries 
with it exemption from military 
service. Members receive the 



;so] 



established rate of pay in the plant 
which they leave, or the plant to 
which they go, whichever be the 
higher. 

The formation of the War Muni- 
tions Volunteers system has given 
many of the beneficial results of in- 
dustrial conscription without any 
of the dangers. The Government 
can now select men scientifically 
whenever there is special need of 
additional skilled workmen in any 
factory or in any district, and these 
men can be taken from work on 
which their loss will be felt least. 
About the only alternative would 
be the offering of high wages on the 
most vital work, which would not 
only disturb the entire labor field 
but might take men away from 
work as important as that to which 
they are changed. 

Women's Wages 

Later on, when practically all of 
the useful men had been drafted or 
had gone into munition industries, 
the Labor Supply Department 
adopted the scheme of using women 
for every job women could do or be 
trained to do. In this connection a 
condition attached to their use, 
agreed upon by both capital and la- 
bor, should be mentioned. It was 
agreed that women undertaking 
skilled work should receive the same 
day rate as skilled men and the same 
piece rate. A woman's wage could 
differ from that of a man only when 
employed on unskilled or semi- 
skilled work ; and then she came un- 
der an order which fixed the mini- 
mum wage at a rate which in 
general came to about two-thirds of 
the man's wages, varying with the 
district involved. The lower rate 
on unskilled work was due to the 
fact that women were found to be 

[21] 



less effective on these general tasks, 
because on heavy lifting and such 
work it was found necessary to re- 
place two men with three women. 
The conditions of pay for women 
have not been particularly advan- 
tageous to employers directly, but 
indirectly they have been of very 
great value. As a result of the 
good wages that women have been 
able to earn on munitions work, em- 
ployers have never lacked applicants 
for almost every kind of work. At 
the present time, the employment 
of women in England is limited 
only by the facilities for training 
them. As a further result of equal 
wages the class of women taken 
into the munitions plants has been 
much above the class of the factory 
girl and the woman employed by 
textile works before the war. 
Women of good position and with 
fair education have been found and 
this has undoubtedly had a very 
great influence on the variety of 
work on which it has been possible 
to employ women. 

Work That Women Are Doing 

The English women have done 
far more in industry than any one 
expected. Every one probably real- 
ized at the beginning that there 
would be no difficulty in introducing 
them on simple repetition work of 
a light character. However, since 
the Ministry of Munitions first, to- 
wards the end of 1915, began to 
urge the employment of women, 
there has been a development which 
has surprised anybody who has 
seen anything of it — a development 
both in the extent to which the La- 
bor Supply Department has found 
it possible to staff machine shops, 
and in the difficulty of the work op 
which it has been able to introduce 



them. Shell, fuse, grenade and sim- 
ilar repetition work of an easy type, 
calling for no particular accuracy, 
is obviously women's work as far 
as the operating is concerned, but 
there are now shops that employ 
women on very nearly all the skilled 
work in shell factories. One fac- 
tory, on light shells, employs about 
94% women. Taking shell, fuse 
and grenade work as a whole, the 
average number of women employed 
is about 80%. On the skilled opera- 
tions such as howitzer work, the 
averages are not so high, but there 
are individual cases which show 
just as high a percentage of women 
employees. In the largest English 
explosive factory there are 15,000 
hands, and of these, 11,000 are 
women. On trinitrotoluol manufac- 
ture the average is about 80% 
women, and on the picric acid the 
average is about 40% women. On 
filling fuses and that class of work 
the average is generally, well over 
90%. 

There are now in England over a 
million women working on muni- 
tions. They have undertaken work 
in every industry which has any 
bearing on munitions. Outside the 
machine shops their work is very 
largely laboring work, and they 
have undertaken laboring in every 
industry and under the worst pos- 
sible conditions, even such condi- 
tions as exist in blast furnaces, acid 
works, iron and steel plants, etc. 

For all simple repetition work it 
has been found that women need no 
training at all, but for the more 
highly skilled work on howitzers, 
aeroplanes, engines, etc., the Minis- 
try of Munitions has had to help the 
employers by equipping training 
schools. By far the greater part of 
the women on that work have been 
trained in the factories themselves, 



but the smaller factories have found 
considerable difficulty in doing their 
own training, and in many factories 
there is too little work of this nature 
on which women can gradually ac- 
quire skill. The Ministry has, 
therefore, established two classes of . 
training establishments — training 
schools attached to various technical 
colleges that exist in most industrial 
centers, and factories taken over by 
the Ministry equipped as instruc- 
tional plants. They do actual muni- 
tion work in these training estab- 
lishments. They do not attempt to 
give general training, but they give 
specialized training on a specific 
type of machine, and in that way 
the women acquire a considerable 
degree of skill in a period of from 
six to eight weeks. 

At the beginning of the employ- 
ment of women in 1915, practically 
all employers in England looked 
upon the introduction of a woman 
into a machine shop as being one of 
the horrors of war, but nothing has 
been so remarkable as the change 
in the attitude of the manufactur- 
ers towards the employment of 
women. Now if any question arises 
as to the employment of a woman or 
an unskilled man, no employer will 
hesitate to employ the woman. She 
has been found to be quicker in ac- 
quiring skill and is far better and 
faster than the type of man left in 
the factories now. 

The Shortage of Labor 

A very serious shortage of labor 
came upon England suddenly and 
very unexpectedly, and as regards 
skilled labor the United States is 
probably no better off than En- 
gland, because in the United States 
the unskilled man has been em- 
ployed as an alternative to a 



[22] 



greater extent than in England in 
peace time. It is probably only a 
question of a few months before the 
United States will be faced with a 
serious shortage of labor." 



The Chamber of Commerce of the 
United States has also prepared a 
condensed summary of important Brit- 
ish labor changes, emphasizing some 
points not considered in the other 
condensation, and therefore is worthy 
of quotation in full: 

English Labor and War 
Production 

Employment of Labor 

"In England today those engaged 
in certain specified lines of business 
may not employ men between the 
ages of 18 and 61. This indicates 
the extent to which England has 
gone after three years of war in her 
efforts to take men from the less 
essential industries and concentrate 
national effort on industries en- 
gaged on war work and other work 
of national importance. 

Restrictions Removed 

Early in the war it became evi- 
dent that if the troops at the front 
were to be furnished with munitions 
and supplies, men at home must 
work in a manner different from 
that established by trade union rules 
and practice. Restrictions upon 
labor made it impossible to produce 
the quantities needed. The labor 
unions agreed to the temporary 
modification or elimination of these 
restrictions upon the following con- 
ditions which were agreed to by the 
government officials: 

1. The rules and practices were to.be 
changed only for the period of the 
war ; 



2. No changes were to be made which 
unnecessarily affected established 
conditions; 

3. Capital was to receive no advantage 
in the struggle between capital and 
labor. For example, profits were to 
be limited and wages controlled by 
government tribunals. 

Upon these conditions labor 
agreed that there should be no stop- 
page upon work on munitions or 
other work required for the satis- 
factory completion of the war. 

Labor Conditions Changed 
Three fundamental changes in labor 
conditions were brought about: 

1. In certain classes of plants strikes 
are not lawful; 

2. In such plants increases in wages 
may be asked only to offset increased 
cost of living; 

3. Restrictions by labor unions against 
the so-called "dilution of labor," by 
the employment of women and of 
unskilled labor, have been laid aside 
for the war. Also restriction upon 
an individual's output. 

Employment of Women 
The procedure regarding the em- 
ployment of women illustrates the 
situation. When men went to the 
front women wanted to take their 
places in the factory, but union rules 
forbade the employment of women 
on many kinds of work. These rules 
were relaxed upon the following con- 
ditions, and more than one million 
and a half of women have in conse- 
quence been put upon men's work: 

1. No woman was to be employed if 
any man was available for the work, 
even if this man was at a distance; 

2. Men were to be reemployed upon 
the work when they returned from 
the war; 

3. The standard of pay was not to be 
reduced, i. e., the minimum rates for 
men would apply to women. 

Post-War Conditions 
Differences as to wages or condi- 
tions of employment are settled by 
arbitration, if possible, if not, by 



[23] 



the Board of Trade (later the Min- 
istry of Munitions of War). A 
record is kept of all departures from 
pre-war conditions. After the war 
readjustments are to be made in 
connection with new inventions and 
other similar matters to create as 
near as possible the conditions 
which would have arisen on the 
basis of pre-war conditions. Fur- 
thermore, in general the government 
is pledged to use its influence to re- 
store after the war the conditions 
affecting labor which existed before 
the war. 

Controlled Plants 

In England today there are more 
than 5,000 so-called "controlled" 
plants. The use in this connection 
of the word "controlled" is mislead- 
ing. The operatic n of these plants 
is not controlled or supervised. In 
fact, so far as management is con- 
cerned, the owners are quite as free 
as before the war. Only profits and 
labor are controlled. All profits of 
such companies in excess of 20% 
beyond the average net earn- 
ings of the two financial years next 
before the war are to be paid to the 
government Exchequer. If, how- 
ever, these average net earnings — 
which are termed standard earn- 
ings — are not fair in the judgment 
of the Minister of Munitions, a dif- 
ferent rate of earnings may be es- 
tablished by him. In arriving at 
this new standard of earnings the 
Minister may consider any perti- 
nent circumstances such as increase 
of output, new machinery or plant, 
alteration of plant, etc. 

Where the owner has used more 
capital or produced a greater vol- 
ume of output than formerly, the 
Minister is to allow him either 8% 
per annum on the amount the 



Minister decides is the amount of 
the additional average capital or 
such a share of the excess profit as 
the Minister decides to be the 
amount the owner would have 
earned by a similar increase of out- 
put during the pre-war period. The 
owner has the right to have which-' 
ever amount is the greater — the 
8% or the additional fixed sum. 
In figuring the additional cap- 
ital on which ' the 8% is cal- 
culated, there is included bor- 
rowed money (other than govern- 
ment loans) and also undivided 
ascertained profits which are re- 
invested in the business. The addi- 
tional profits may, in the discretion 
of the Minister, be in lieu of or in 
addition to the permitted 20% in- 
crease above the standard profit. 

Labor in Controlled Plants 
In such plants there may be no 
strikes or stoppage of work. The 
following rules apply : 

A. All employees "shall attend regularly 
and work diligently during the or- 
dinary working hours of the estab- 
lishment," including a reasonable 
amount of overtime — but Sunday 
work is not required; 

B. No employee shall "insist or attempt 
to insist on the observance either 
by himself or by any other person" 
of rules or customs tending to re- 
strict production or "to limit the 
employment of any class of per- 
sons" ; 

C. No employee shall bring intoxicat- 
ing liquors into the establishment; 
or be drunk in the establishment ; or 
be guilty of a disturbance, or be 
disobedient to lawful orders ; or tear 
down or deface any regulations, 
notices, etc.; 

D. These rules shall not interfere with 
the establishment's private rules; 
but these rules are "the only rules 
of the establishment in respect of 
which proceedings may be taken 

before a Munitions Tribunal." 

A violation of the rules is an of- 
fense under the Munitions of War 
Act and is punishable by fine. 



[24] 



Those engaged upon certain 
classes of munition work are for- 
bidden to induce workmen to enter 
their employ by offering increased 
wages or to bring workmen from a 
distance of more than ten miles. 
Such manufacturers are directed to 
apply for all men needed to the La- 
bor Exchange of the Board of 
Trade. 

Through the Board of Trade La- 
bor Exchange and to meet such re- 
quirements as those above stated 
there has been created a volunteers' 
Industrial Reserve in which are en- 
rolled men and women who agree to 
go wherever they may be required 
by the government and to engage in 
whatever work is given them. A 
large number of men and women 
have enrolled in this reserve and are 
acting under the instructions of the 
Ministry of Munitions. Such per- 
sons receive, in addition to their 
wages, a subsistence allowance from 
the government when they are com- 
pelled to live away from their fami- 
lies. This is for the purpose of 
making it possible for workmen to 
send their entire wages to their 
families. Where a workman is sent 
from one district into another he 
receives the wage of the old or new 
district according to which is the 
higher. 

Leaving Certificates 

All persons are forbidden to em- 
ploy men within six weeks after 
they have left work, unless the man 
has a "leaving certificate" from the 
last employer stating that he left 
with the employer's consent. If 
such leaving certificates are unrea- 
sonably refused, the Munitions Tri- 
bunal may issue certificate having 
the same effect and impose a fine 
upon the manufacturer who refused 
the certificate. 



Labor Battalions 
As further indicating what has 
been done to secure labor needed in 
connection with the war, there have 
been organized, under the army, 
battalions of dock laborers at Liver- 
pool, London and other ports. In 
London alone there are said to be 
not less than 10,000 dock workers in 
the army engaged in dock work. 
These battalions are sent where 
needed to assist in unloading ships. 
While at work they receive the reg- 
ular worker's pay in addition to 
their army pay. 

Labor Complaints 

Under the Munitions Act there 
has been organized a National Ad- 
visory Committee on War Output, 
composed of seven labor representa- 
tives, this committee to receive com- 
plaints from labor with regard to 
the carrying out of the Munitions 
Act. Under this central committee 
there have been established more 
than 70 local committees. On these 
committees there are only labor 
men. The committees have no power 
but they are said to have been of 
material assistance in preventing 
labor disputes. All final decisions, 
however, must be made by the Min- 
istry of Munitions. 

Hours of Labor 

There has been no limitation of 
the hours of labor in plants but the 
policy has been followed of continu- 
ing such hours as are usual in each 
business. As a matter of fact, there 
have been such excessive hours in 
some plants that a commission, ap- 
pointed to investigate work and the 
relation of hours of labor to output, 
strongly recommend a reduction in 
hours where work was being done 
10, 12 and 14 hours a day, seven 
days in the week. 



[25] 



Training the Unskilled 

To train women and unskilled 
men classes have been formed at 
technical schools. Also groups of 
untrained employees have been 
placed in plants under skilled men. 
In these two ways the unskilled 
have been made efficient, but it is 
said that the classes in the technical 



schools have been of greater assist- 
ance in developing skilled labor. 

It is evident from the above that 
the policy in England has been for 
the government to rely upon and to 
seek the close cooperation of organ- 
ized labor. It is well for American 
business men to have this in mind." 



[26] 



V 



Britain Firm— America Hesitating 



It is evident that the British Labor 
question has received systematic cen- 
tralized attention. This is, of course, 
easier to accomplish in Great Britain 
than in America for several reasons 
including the following: 

1. Size of country. 

2. Homogeneity of population. 

3. Many national strikes prior to 
the war resulted in about 10% of the 
entire population of the British Isles 
belonging to the Labor Unions which 
the Government has recognized offi- 
cially and adopted as the mechanism 
for dealing with labor. 

4. Having in the British Isles no 
sovereign bodies corresponding to our 
State Governments, centralized con- 
trol was more natural and simple. 

5. No large enemy alien population. 

The very fact that our national con- 
ditions increase the difficulty of co- 
ordinating our labor efforts consti- 
tutes an excellent reason for making 
more vigorous efforts to do so. All 
of our Labor Committees are strug- 
gling valiantly in their individual 
fields and are also endeavoring to 
cooperate, but cooperation without 
aggressive leadership seldom succeeds. 
The greater the number of co-equal 
authorities the greater the need for a 
chief. 

It is difficult to understand how any 
of these labor committees can do 
comprehensive work without highly 
organized statistical and investiga- 
tional auxiliaries. 

The Department of Labor has been 
said in the Press to have the follow- 
ing program: 

(A) To extend to a number of in- 
dustries having war contracts .the 



system of Wage Adjustment Boards. 

(B) To increase the number of 
war department contracts containing 
clauses providing that in case of 
suspension of work by strikes the 
Secretary of War shall settle the dis- 
putes. 

(C) To enforce agreements not to 
reduce wages. 

(D) To encourage employers to 
form associations by industry groups. 

(E) To press informally for adjust- 
ment of disagreements before they 
reach the strike stage. 

Was the Public Told? 

In August the Department of Labor 
had no complete record of strikes and 
its staff of investigators, in spite of 
increasing recurrence of strikes, was 
smaller than it had been three months 
earlier. This was said to be due to 
lack of appropriations. In other 
words, the Department chiefly charged 
with labor knowledge and activity had 
insufficient funds with which even to 
list the trouble spots. 

Comparatively recently seven or 
eight hundred thousand dollars, it is 
said, have been appropriated by the 
President from his War Emergency 
Fund which, together with the Con- 
gressional appropriation of $250,000, 
enables the Department of Labor bet- 
ter to meet for a time its responsibili- 
ties. But most of the other obstacles 
still operate — (chiefly lack of concen- 
trated authority and comprehensive 
plan). 

It would be interesting but useless 
to consider how much trouble could 
have been averted by earlier applica- 
tion of help from the Emergency 
Fund. 



[27] 



The labor situation is so fraught 
with political difficulties and other 
dangers that one can understand 
the reluctance to take a firm con- 
structive hold upon it. But unfor- 
tunately the difficulty is rapidly 
increasing, so the sooner centralized 
action is taken the quicker the politi- 
cal boomerang is likely to be elimi- 
nated — leaving out of account the ad- 
vantage to our national plans and 
safety. In considering our national 
problems one is not warranted in dat- 
ing their beginning with our entry 
into the war because our real problems 
began in common with the rest of the 
world in August, 1914. 

Realizing her extreme danger Great 
Britain from that date has shown a 
resourcefulnes and an astonishing 
willingness to step into the unknown, 
which go far to explain her long 
existence as a nation. Even while 
experimenting, however, she is doing 
things thoroughly. Her accumulation 
of information bearing upon every 
important subject, her analyses of 
past, present, and future are lessons 
worthy of our careful consideration. 
The following extracts from the report 
of her Commission appointed June 
12th and July 3rd, 1917 to inquire into 
the Causes of Industrial Unrest may 
prove of interest: 

"In order that the principal 
points of agreement and difference 
between the eight reports may be 
readily seen, I submit the following 
brief summary of the Commission- 
ers' findings and recommendations: 

(1) High food prices in relation 
to wages, and unequal distribution 
of food. 

(2) Restriction of personal 
freedom and, in particular, the 
effects of the Munitions of War 
Acts. Workmen have been tied up 
to particular factories and have 



been unable to obtain wages in re- 
lation to their skill. In many cases 
the skilled man's wage is less than 
the wage of the unskilled. Too 
much centralization in London is 
reported. 

(3) Lack of confidence in the 
Government. — This is due to the 
surrender of Trade Union customs 
and the feeling that promises as re- 
gards their restoration will not be 
kept. It has been emphasized by 
the omission to record changes of 
working conditions under Schedule 
II, Article 7 of the Munitions of 
War Act. 

(4) Delay in settlement of dis- 
putes. — In some instances 10 weeks 
have elapsed without a settlement, 
and after a strike has taken place, 
the matter has been put right 
within a few days. 

(5) Operation of the Military 
Service Acts. 

(6) Lack of housing in certain 
areas. 

(7) Restrictions on liquor. — 
This is marked in some areas. 

(8) Industrial fatigue. 

(9) Lack of proper organiza- 
tion amongst the Unions. 

(10) Lack of communal sense. — 
This is noticeable in South Wales, 
where there has been a break-away 
from faith in Parliamentary repre- 
sentation. 

(11) Inconsiderate treatment of 
women, whose wages are sometimes 
as low as 13s. 

(12) Delay in granting pensions 
to soldiers, especially those in Class 
"W" Reserve. 

(13) Raising of the limit of In- 
come Tax Exemption. 

(14) The Workmen's Compensa- 
tion Act. — The maximum of £1 
weekly is now inadequate." 



[28] 



So intent is Great Britain upon fac- 
ing the future intelligently and brave- 
ly that the man who is largely cred- 
ited with that great achievement of 
building up the Ministry of Munitions, 
Dr. Christopher Addison, has been 
appointed Minister of Reconstruction 
and he is already actively at work on 
the problems of the future. A report 
of one of his sub-committees charged 
with improving relations between em- 
ployers and employed contains some 
suggestive paragraphs: 

"1. The terms of reference to the 
Sub-Committee are: — 

"(1) To make and consider 
suggestions for securing a per- 
manent improvement in the re- 
lations between employers and 
workmen. 

"(2) To recommend means for 
securing that industrial condi- 
tions affecting the relations be- 
tween employers and workmen 
shall be systematically reviewed 
by those concerned, with a view 
to improving conditions in the 
future." 

2. After a general consideration 
of our duties in relation to the mat- 
ters referred to us, we decided first 
to address ourselves to the problem 
of establishing permanently im- 
proved relations between employers 
and employed in the main indus- 
tries of the country in which there 
exist representative organizations 
on both sides. The present report 
accordingly deals more especially 
with these trades. We are proceed- 
ing with the consideration of the 
problems connected with the indus- 
tries which are less well organized. 

3. We appreciate that under the 
pressure of the war both employers 
and work-people and their organi- 
zations are very much preoccupied, 
but, notwithstanding, we believe it 



to be of the highest importance that 
our proposals should be put before 
those concerned without delay, so 
that employers and employed may 
meet in the near future and discuss 
the problems before them. 

4. The circumstances of the pres- 
ent time are admitted on all sides 
to offer a great! opportunity for 
securing a permanent improvement 
in the relations between employers 
and employed, while failure to util- 
ize the opportunity may involve the 
nation in grave industrial difficul- 
ties at the end of the war. 

It is generally allowed that the 
war almost enforced some recon- 
struction of industry, and in con- 
sidering the subjects referred to 
us we have kept in view the need 
for securing in the development of 
reconstruction the largest possible 
measure of cooperation between 
employers and employed. 

In the interests of the community 
it is vital that after the war the 
cooperation of all classes, estab- 
lished during the war, should con- 
tinue, and more especially with 
regard to the relations between em- 
ployers and employed. For secur- 
ing improvement in the latter, it is 
essential that any proposals put 
forward should offer to workpeople 
the means of attaining improved 
conditions of employment and a 
higher standard of comfort gener- 
ally, and involve the enlistment of 
their active and continuous cooper- 
ation in the promotion of industry. 

To this end, the establishment for 
each industry of an organization, 
representative of employers and 
workpeople, to have as its object 
the regular consideration of mat- 
ters affecting the progress and well- 
being of the trade from the point 
of view of all those engaged in it, 
so far as this is consistent with the 



[29] 



general interest of the community, 
appears to us necessary. 

5. Many complicated problems 
have arisen during the war which 
have a bearing both on employers 
and workpeople, and may affect the 
relations between them. It is clear 
that industrial conditions will need 
careful handling if grave difficul- 
ties and strained relations are to be 
avoided after the war has ended. 
The precise nature of the problems 
to be faced naturally varies from 
industry to industry, and even from 
branch to branch within the same 
industry. Their treatment con- 
sequently will need an intimate 
knowledge of the facts and circum- 
stances of each trade, and such 
knowledge is to be found only 
among those directly connected 
with the trade. 

6. With a view to providing 
means for carrying out the policy 
outlined above, we recommend that 
His Majesty's Government should 
propose without delay to the va- 
rious associations of employers and 
employed the formation of Joint 
Standing Industrial Councils in the 
several industries, where they do 
not already exist, composed of 
representatives of employers and 
employed, regard being paid to the 
Various sections of the industry 
and the various classes of labour 
engaged." 

The first annual report of the 
United States Shipping Board issued 
December 1, 1917 says: 

"The mere placing of contracts 
and disbursements of funds, how- 
ever, is a relatively small part of 
the work of building ships, and 
tables of ships under contract and 
estimated expenditures give but an 
inadequate picture of the Corpo- 
ration's task. In the last analysis it 



is man-power that builds ships, and 
the mobilization of a large, com- 
petent, trained, and willing force 
of workers for the shipyards of the 
country has been among the most 
important of the Corporation's ac- 
tivities. An Industrial Service De- 
partment has ben organized to aid 
in the solution of this problem. 

The problem has been a threefold 
one — first, getting men; second, 
keeping men; and, third, fitting 
men for their respective tasks. 

In procuring men for shipbuild- 
ing service, the Corporation has 
had the cooperation of the Depart- 
ment of Labor in assisting ship- 
building officials as to ways of get- 
ting in touch with sources of labor 
supply and in the intelligent use of 
state and federal employment of- 
fices. A large development of this 
work will shortly take place, when 
the Department of Labor in co- 
operation with the Corporation, 
shall have established shipbuilding 
recruiting centers. 

The retention by shipbuilders of 
men at their plants has involved a 
careful study of the problem of 
"hiring and firing." It has been 
found that yards employ from two 
to six men for each job during the 
course of a year, with obvious 
losses in efficiency and waste of 
effort. A weekly man-power audit 
of each shipyard is now being con- 
ducted by the Industrial Service 
Department, which has been of 
great assistance to shipbuilders in 
eliminating wasteful practices, and 
in setting up new standards of em- 
ployment. 

With the cooperation of the heads 
of the international labor unions, 
a far-reaching scheme of industrial 
education has been put in opera- 
tion. An instructor training center 
has been established at Newport 



[so ; 



News, to which from 75 to 150 
skilled mechanics are to be dele- 
gated by selected yards for a six- 
weeks' course, to learn how to im- 
part a knowledge of their trades 
to recruits in the shipyards. In 
the course of six months the gradu- 
ates of this training center, and of 
such others as may be established, 
will be in a position to initiate 
75,000 new workers, mostly from 
kindred trades, in shipyard employ- 
ment. 

The housing of the new workmen 
brought into the shipbuilding work, 
especially in connection with newly 
established yards, has presented a 
serious problem, and plans are 
under consideration to meet it in 
a comprehensive way." 

It is the belief of many well-in- 
formed investigators that the cooper- 
ation, necessary to meet the demands 
for shipbuilding labor alone with 
adequate speed, cannot be obtained 
under present conditions. Various la- 
bor committees are rushing about the 
country to perform their functions 
without previous division of territory 
or adequate plans to prevent confu- 
sion, overlapping and competition. 
Even were this not true the shipbuild- 
ing labor cannot be obtained and kept 
satisfied without elimination of com- 
petitive bidding on the part of Gov- 
ernment and private organizations; 
and in fact, the rates of pay for each 
class of worker in all the important 
war activities must be coordinated in 
the various districts in order to 
achieve any stability of employment 
and prevention of the unrest now 
everywhere apparent. 

Public Opinion Helps 

The Merchants' Association of New 
York, with a patriotic zeal and initi- 
ative which is setting a wholesome 



example to other cities and also to 
our Federal Government, has ap- 
pointed a special Advisory War Ship- 
ping Committee. 

This Committee concludes: 

Transportation Facilities Needed 

"Most of the shipbuilding yards 
in this vicinity have given a detailed 
account of their problems to the 
Committee. A tabulation of the 
problems of the various yards shows 
that the problem most frequently 
confronting the shipbuilders is that 
of obtaining additional and im- 
proved transportation facilities. 

The second most important prob- 
lem is that of providing additional 
housing facilities. 

An inadequate labor supply is 
also a vital problem at the present 
time. 

Some yards are prevented from 
reaching maximum efficiency by the 
delay and difficulty in getting tools 
and accessory parts for ships. 

Other problems which shipbuild- 
ers report as serious are the diffi- 
culty of preventing the shifting of 
labor from yard to yard, long de- 
lays by Exemption Boards in de- 
ciding industrial claims to ship- 
building employees, lack of realiza- 
tion on the part of labor and the 
public of the importance of building 
ships, and the necessity of a larger 
supply of shipworkers with special 
skill. 

The Housing Situation 

The reason for the decision of the 
Committee to exert immediate ef- 
forts to improve the housing situ- 
ation can be seen by a study of the 
most important problems reported. 

The problems of providing addi- 
tional housing facilities, of improv- 
ing transportation facilities and of 



[31] 



obtaining a greater supply of labor 
are practically one problem, inas- 
much as the difficulty of obtaining 
labor is in many cases due almost 
entirely to lack of housing and 
transportation facilities. One ship- 
builder states that his one great 
problem is to get 2,000 workmen, 
but he thinks this problem could 
easily be solved if he could provide 
housing accommodations for them. 
The immense amount of capital 
which shipbuilders have had to put 
into plant enlargement absolutely 
prevents most of them from invest- 
ing in houses. On the other hand, 
private builders will not construct 
houses enough because of the high 
cost of materials, scarcity of work- 
men and future uncertainty. The 
Liberty Loans have taken much of 
the investors' money which might 
otherwise be loaned to builders of 
houses. Shipbuilders are practi- 
cally unanimous in stating that the 
Government must finance the build- 
ing of workmen's houses if the re- 
quired ships are to be produced. 
There are indications that the Gov- 
ernment has already given careful 
attention to this matter." 

A bulletin issued last Fall by the 
Patriotic Education Society cited the 
following specific cases as illustrating 
conditions which were threatening the 
Shipping Board's building program: 

"1. The output of ships from the 
yards of the Newport News Dry 
Dock and Shipbuilding Company, 
our largest shipyard, is only about 
50% of what it should be, owing to 
the unintelligent handling of the 
labor housing question. The com- 
pany has asked the Government to 
appropriate $1,000,000 to $2,000,000 
for workingmen's houses to be built 
on land provided by the company. 
The Emergency Fleet Corporation 



offers to build the houses, but insists 
upon securing a mortgage on the 
company's plant. On the other hand, 
the company argues that the houses 
will be a dead loss after the war, and 
that the Government should stand 
this loss by accepting a mortgage on 
the houses. 

While the Argument Progresses, 
Ships Are Not Being Built! 

2. The spirit of trade and barter 
has held up work on the Govern- 
ment-owned yards and continues to 
make for delay. Contracts for 
building and operating the yards at 
Hog Island, Pa., at Port Newark and 
at Bristol Point, were drawn up by 
General Goethals. They were not 
signed for four months, while the 
Government and the private corpo- 
rations bickered over price. 

Saving Dollars but Losing 
Ships' Tonnage! 

3. The contract for building the 
yard at Port Newark and operating 
it under Government supervision, 
upon completion, was awarded the 
Submarine Boat Company. This 
company was organized by the same 
men who built submarine chasers 
for the British in record time. In 
order to launch the new ships, it is 
necessary to dredge 3,000,000 cubic 
yards of soft mud to the channel of 
Newark Bay. An experienced dredg- 
ing concern, called in by the Govern- 
ment, advised that 12 feet was the 
minimum depth in which to launch 
a ship at mean low water. Again 
the question of cost was allowed to 
intervene. Instructions were given 
to a Newark engineer to prepare 
plans for dredging to a depth of 7% 
feet, although 7^ feet would not 
give sufficient water for launching. 
A glance at a tide chart would have 



[32] 



shown the Emergency Fleet Corpo- 
ration the absurdity of its position. 
The controversy is as yet unsettled, 
although it is proposed to work a 
single Government dredge, said to 
be entirely inadequate to dredge the 
harbor before the freezing weather 
sets in. The Submarine Boat Com- 
pany expected to lay the keel for its 
first ship in February and to be able, 
upon completion of the first hull, to 
launch two boats a month there- 
after. It is doubtful if the first 
keel can be laid before July. 

This Is Not Winning the War! 

4. Labor is the all-important 
question in building ships, but the 
sites for the Government yards have 
been selected without considering 
this question. There is no possibil- 
ity for housing the workers on the 
ground, but they have to be trans- 
ported a distance. In one instance 
the Government yard has been lo- 
cated upon an open sewage canal. 
Probably the entire national labor 
problem will have to head up to a 
labor dictator before the shipbuild- 
ing problem can be satisfactorily 
met. 

This Is Not Encouraging Labor 
to Build Ships! 

5. Three hundred hulls are being 
built in Atlantic and Gulf shipyards. 
Weeks went by before it seemed to 
be recognized that hulls could not 
cross the Atlantic without engines. 
Then the Emergency Fleet Corpora- 
tion resorted to hoary precedent, 
advertising for bids for installing 
the engines, although the country's 
capacity, under existing conditions, 
was filled." 

The New Republic for November 17, 
1917, demands a national labor policy 
and presents several constructive 



thoughts in relation thereto, some of 
which are quoted below: 

A National Labor Policy 

In the absence of a national pol- 
icy, responsibility for labor negotia- 
tions has become widely scattered 
and no semblance of a uniform point 
of view is discoverable. The Labor 
Sub-Committee of the Council of 
National Defense, the Interdepart- 
ment Committee, the National La- 
bor Adjustment Commission, the 
Shipyard Labor Board, the Labor 
Commission, which recently left for 
the West, the Board of Control on 
army garments — these specially 
created agencies are all primarily 
engaged in adjusting the demands 
of labor for the War and Navy De- 
partments, for some contract shops 
and for a relatively few sub-con- 
tracting establishments. The re- 
maining government departments 
deal with their employees along lines 
of their own choosing. The great 
mining, transportation and manu- 
facturing plants which have no di- 
rect government contracts either 
negotiate with labor on some previ- 
ously agreed basis of which the an- 
thracite coal agreement is an in- 
stance; or they have no considered 
basis at all as in the case of the 
steel industry. 

The confusion created by this di- 
versity of agencies and lack of 
agencies is grossly uneconomical. 
Production executives confronted 
with the insistent claims of labor 
are bewildered to the point of dis- 
traction. Although admittedly out- 
side the field in which they are ex- 
pert, managers are being forced to 
turn their entire attention to hu- 
man problems in order that the 
wheels may be kept moving. This 
is unfortunate not only because 



[33; 



expensive technical executives are 
diverted from their specialties, but 
because they must attend to labor 
problems which for successful solu- 
tion require a quality of mind pecu- 
liarly adapted and trained. 

It happens also, in the absence of 
a uniform policy, that when two 
or three departments let contracts 
to one corporation the same group 
of employees must be dealt with un- 
der the two or three disparate sets 
of terms of the respective depart- 
ments — a state of affairs not calcu- 
lated to reassure workers that 
wisdom, economy and justice are 
determining the treatment which is 
accorded them. 

But the existing confusion is not 
without its hopeful phases. Ele- 
ments of sound policy are to be 
found, here a little and there a lit- 
tle; and an effort to group into one 
effective platform on national in- 
dustrial relations the best features 
of the several existing methods of 
handling the human factor should 
result in a policy which would leave 
little to be desired. Immediate 
consideration of these successful 
methods and of the principles which 
underlie them is essential, if the 
policy is to have practical value in 
the present crisis. 

There is, first, the principle of 
representation which requires par- 
ticipation of all interests in deliber- 
ations which affect them. Several 
of the new agencies have from the 
start acted upon this basis. The 
Adjustment Committee of nine, for 
example, includes three employers, 
three representatives of workers 
and three of the public. But there 
is a necessary corollary to this prin- 
ciple, which has also to be recog- 
nized; namely, representation not 
only by interests in general but by 
immediately involved interest in 



particular. On the shipbuilding la- 
bor board, notably, the representa- 
tion is more satisfactory because 
all parties are chosen from the plant 
in which the dispute has arisen. Of 
equal importance today with a jury 
of peers is a jury composed at least 
in part of those versed in the tech- 
nique around which the controversy 
centers. 

The second principle, also implied 
in the first, requires the existence 
of a collective agreement in which 
certain of the terms of employment 
are definitely set forth, and certain 
guaranties mutually afforded. This 
sensibly puts negotiations on a 
footing of equal bargaining power, 
and it stabilizes employment for the 
laborer and costs for the manager. 
The federal government has en- 
tered into a collective agreement 
with the representatives of the sev- 
eral trades necessary to shipbuild- 
ing and has by so doing admitted 
the practical utility of collective 
contractual relations. 

There is, again, implicit in the 
collective bargain the acceptance of 
union standards of employment. 
Perhaps no element in a national 
labor policy is at the moment more 
important than this. The union 
standards of pay, although they 
vary from place to place and from 
trade to trade, are standards that 
represent a momentary equilibrium 
between the downward pressure of 
employers and the upward thrust 
of organized workers. Union 
standards represent the least that 
the workers feel they can safely ac- 
cept if they are to maintain their 
status as fathers and citizens. In 
a day of fluctuating living costs 
when practical working standards 
of pay must be achieved, the union 
scale with all its shortcomings 
stands as the best available. 



[34] 



The initial formulation of na- 
tional policy would, therefore, in- 
clude the requirement of collective 
bargaining, with expert representa- 
tive deliberation on all problems 
where the interests of the workers 
are affected, and the acceptance of 
union standards of pay, hours and 
working conditions as the minimum 
below which no work would be car- 
ried on. So much would be only a 
correlation and uniform adoption 
of already familiar practices. But 
this is not enough. It is never suf- 
ficient to agree that certain terms 
will become operative without mak- 
ing provisions for their enforce- 
ment. Moreover it is never suf- 
ficient — and in war time approaches 
fatal negligence — to provide only 
for settlement of grievances after 
they have become acute. The de- 
mand for prevention must lead us 
to provide in our policy for a na- 
tional instrument of permanent in- 
quiry and report on the causes of 
discontent both before and after the 
strike stage is reached. The com- 
mission which is now investigating 
in the West is not at present in- 
tended to fulfil this function; nor 
has the small staff of the Depart- 
ment of Labor been commandeered 
to meet more than a tiny fraction 
of this need. The requirements of 
the situation make necessary a new 
body with new duties, powers and 
resources. 

A National Bureau of Industrial 
Relations is needed. It should have 
for its province (1) to know all the 
places where government work is 
being done; (2) to know in as great 
detail as possible the terms and con- 
ditions under which that work is 
being undertaken in order to be 
able to enforce existing agreements ; 
(3) to ferret out and try to adjust 
at once all complaints arising in the 



shops; (4) to investigate and re- 
port to the several existing adjust- 
ment boards the facts of pending 
controversies which the Bureau it- 
self is unable to settle. The uni- 
form method of exhaustive re- 
port and the publicity of con- 
ditions which have resulted so 
beneficially in the finances of 
our railroads in the last decade of 
the Interstate Commerce Commis- 
sion's activity, are now imperative 
in the labor affairs of all corpora- 
tions performing the public service 
of war production, and in the labor 
affairs of the government shops 
themselves. We need a national 
fact-finding body as trained and 
discriminating in the labor field as 
the Interstate Commerce Commis- 
sion is in its own domain. Without 
in any way dislocating the judicial 
functions of all existing boards 
it would be possible greatly to 
strengthen their hands by giving 
over to one competently conducted 
agency the work of discovering vio- 
lations of agreements already in 
force, of finding the reasons for 
pending troubles, and of laying bare 
before the fact, causes of potential 
disturbance. 

This National Bureau, conducted 
with honestly progressive purposes, 
would indeed be the safety valve 
through which much pent-up dis- 
trust, ill-will and rankling bitter- 
ness could be innocuously released; 
and its work would be the surest 
guaranty that new difficulties would 
be kept at a minimum. Operating 
on a basis of the national policy we 
have suggested, this agency would 
give the working class a new sense 
of the government's awareness, of 
its sympathy with and understand- 
ing of their needs, of its desire to 
be an active partner in the enter- 
prise of making industry safe for 



[35] 



a democracy. It could, in fine, be 
the articulate working mind, think- 
ing and planning to see that, in the 
conduct of the war, labor was being 
reckoned with considerately, affirm- 
atively and with a prophetic sense 
of the more secure and responsible 
place which the worker is destined 
to occupy in the post-war economy. 
The expense incident to the ef- 
fective functioning of this Bureau 
would undoubtedly be large, but in 
view of the savings it Would effect 
the net cost would be negligible. 
Moreover the closest working co- 
operation should be established 
with the Department of Labor to 
the end that its trained investiga- 
tors and its existing machinery be 
so far as possible put at the Bu- 
reau's disposal. And the manifold 
committees created under the Coun- 
cil of National Defense and other 
bodies, to whom aspects of the labor 



problem have already been en- 
trusted, would unquestionably find 
their maximum usefulness under 
the immediate guidance of this ac- 
credited and responsible agency. 
But in any case the element of cost 
must be completely subordinated to 
the larger ends in view. 

The task of integrating our gov- 
ernmental war machinery is already 
well under way. The next step im- 
peratively called for is the creation 
of one authoritative, unified body 
committed to the definition and pro- 
mulgation of a liberal national labor 
policy and to widespread and im- 
partial investigation of the sources 
of unrest. Controlled by this pol- 
icy and guided by the truly relevant 
facts which such investigation 
would disclose, our war industries 
will achieve a productivity and a 
harmony to be secured in no other 
way." 



[36] 



VI 



Capital and Labor Have Locked Horns 



Labor Dictator Needed 

We doubt whether the labor pro- 
gram can be solved through the old- 
established peace-time channels any 
more successfully than the present 
Congressional investigation indicates 
that the War Department can well 
conduct purchasing and manufactur- 
ing business on a national scale. 

Illustrating the futility of existing 
methods, a San Francisco editor un- 
der date of December 26th, 1917, 
writes : 

"In November the Labor Adjust- 
ment Board, presided over by Sec- 
retary of Labor Wilson, adjusted 
the wage disputes in the metal 
trades on the Pacific Coast by 
granting a minimum base wage of 
$5.25 a day of eight hours, as 
against a maximum wage of $4.80 
in the same trades on the Atlantic 
Coast. Having done this, the Fed- 
eral officials went home. They were 
followed immediately by a commit- 
tee of ironworkers. In Washing- 
ton the subject was reopened, while 
the employers were not present, 
and without consulting the employ- 
ers the Federal officials granted the 
ironworkers an increase of 10% 
over and above the wage scale fixed 
in conference. This increase was 
to apply only to the shipyard work- 
ers. As a result of this action, 
15,000 workers in the metal trades 
not engaged in shipyard work, but 
manufacturing tractors, airplane 
motors and other war materials are 
striking today." 

The peace-time bureaucratic ma- 
chine has too rigid delimitation- of 
powers and privileges, too many checks 



against making mistakes to permit of 
rapid expansion of activity without at 
the same time developing an over- 
whelming opposition of jealousy and 
red tape. For that reason the question 
arises whether a Labor Dictator or 
Administrator, responsible directly to 
the President, free from affiliations 
which would arouse unnecessary an- 
tagonism from employer or employee, 
a man in whom the great American 
public would have confidence as to his 
justice, integrity and ability, one 
whose courage would prove equal to 
presenting the real facts for the deci- 
sion of the public regardless of in- 
fluence by either capital or any labor 
groups, may not be vitally necessary 
as a war mechanism. 

Capital and organized labor have to- 
day virtually "locked horns" and view 
each other with increasing distrust. 
For this reason the public and the 
Government must take matters into 
their own hands. 

The Chamber of Commerce of the 
United States, through its Committee 
on Cooperation, with the Council of 
National Defense, outlines the attitude 
of our Government toward labor in its 
war bulletin No. 15 issued August 
24th, 1917, as follows: 

Our Government and 
Labor 

Department of Labor 

"The point of contact between our 
government and labor problems 
is the Department of Labor. When 
the President, Secretary of War, or 
other member of the Administra- 
tion desires information or advice 



[37] 



with regard to some labor problem, 
reliance is had upon the Secretary 
of Labor. Consequently there should 
be widespread knowledge of the 
Secretary's official statement con- 
cerning his general position regard- 
ing labor activities during the war 
and controversies between employ- 
ers and employees during this time. 

Existing Standards 

First, it may be said that on 
April 7, 1917, the Council of 
National Defense adopted a reso- 
lution submitted by the Executive 
Committee of the Committee on La- 
bor of the Council of National De- 
fense, including the following: 

"That the Council of National De- 
fense will issue a statement to employ- 
ers and employees in our industrial 
plants and transportation systems ad- 
vising that neither employers nor em- 
ployees shall endeavor to take advan- 
tage of the country's necessities to 
change existing standards. When eco- 
nomic or other emergencies arise re- 
quiring changes of standards, the same 
shall be made only after such proposed 
changes have been investigated and 
approved by the Council of National 
Defense." 

No Advantage 
of Abnormal Conditions 

The Secretary of Labor is, of 

course, a member of the Council of 

National Defense and on April 23, 

1917, speaking for the Council, he 

said with reference to the above 

resolution : 

"The Council of National Defense 
takes this position, that the standards 
that have been established by law, by 
mutual agreement, or by custom should 
not be changed at this time; that where 
either an employer or an employee has 
been unable under normal conditions 
to change the standards to their own 
liking, they should not take advantage 
of the present abnormal conditions to 
establish new standards." 

He also said: 
"That employers and employees in 



private industries should not attempt 
to take advantage of the existing ab- 
normal conditions to change the stand- 
ards which they were unable to change 
under normal conditions." 

Hours of Labor 

The Secretary mentioned the 
hours of labor as among the stand- 
ards referred to and pointed out 
that by custom certain standards 
constituting a day's work had been 
established varying from seven 
hours per day in some kinds of 
office work to 12 hours per day in 
continuous-operation plants. 

Organization of Unions 

With regard to the organization 
of unions, the Secretary said that, 
speaking solely for himself, his atti- 
tude was that 

"Capital has no right to interfere 
with workingmen organizing labor any 
more than the workingman has a right 
to interefere with the capitalists organ- 
izing capital. The two are on a parity 
on that point, and so my feeling is that 
in the present emergency the employer 
has no right to interfere with you in 
your efforts to organize the workers 
into unions, just as you have no right 
to interfere with capitalists organizing 
capital into corporations. If you can 
get a condition where efforts to organ- 
ize the workers are not interfered with, 
and where a scale of wages is recog- 
nized that maintains the present stand- 
ard of living, it occurs to me that for 
the time being no stoppage of work 
should take place for the purpose of 
forcing recognition of the union." 

Government's Policy 

The above statements should be 
carefully studied by all busines men 
as they represent the declared 
policy of the goverment with regard 
to labor matters in connection with 
the war. 

There is no doubt that many per- 
sons in the government today be- 
lieve that it is important in con- 
nection with the prosecution of the 
war that labor should become 



[38] 



organized and be dealt with by the 
employer and the government 
through these organizations. 

British Policy 

The message brought to this 
country by James Thomas and 
Charles W. Bowerman, who were 
sent over from England by Lloyd 
George to advise this country as to 
what had been done in England in 
connection with labor problems, 
was that the English government 
throughout the war had recognized 
the importance of dealing with la- 
bor through labor organizations, 
having encouraged the further or- 
ganization of labor and dealt with 
organized labor on all problems 
which affect labor. In England la- 
bor has been largely unionized for 
some years. 

American Conditions 
On the other hand many persons 
here emphasize that conditions in 
this country are essentially dif- 
ferent from those in England, and 
that in this instance, as in others, 
English experience will be most 
helpful to us if used with discre- 
tion. 

All agree that industrial peace 
should be promoted during these 
times of concentrated national en- 
ergy. As indicated above, the 
spokesman for the government has 
taken the position that industrial 
peace will be promoted by continu- 
ing the status existing when the 
war began so far as standards of 
hours and recognition of the union 
are concerned. But the Secretary 
of Labor has expressed his personal 
opinion that the peaceful organiza- 
tion of unions may go on." 

The nearest approach in this coun- 
try to a sociological research labora- 



tory is the National Industrial Con- 
ference Board which was organized 
to obtain facts relating to and present 
conclusions bearing upon important 
sociological problems. Under date of 
September 6th this Board presented 
the following report: 

"The Council of National Defense: 
Gentlemen : 

Some months ago, at the sugges- 
tion of Mr. Howard Coffin, a com- 
mittee of five was appointed by the 
National Industrial Conference 
Board to advise with him in mat- 
ters relating to the economics of 
industry, which committee has been 
officially designated the Advisory 
Committee of the National Indus- 
trial Conference Board. At his 
suggestion we are here to present 
certain statements and recommen- 
dations regarding the relations of 
employer and employee and the ad- 
justment of possible differences, 
during the period of the war. 

The National Industrial Confer- 
ence Board is a cooperative and ad- 
visory body of representative man- 
ufacturers constituted through the 
selection of two members by and 
from each of the following National 
Associations : 

American Cotton Manufacturers' Asso- 
ciation. 

American Paper and Pulp Association. 

Electrical Manufacturers' Club 

Manufacturing- Chemists' Association of 
the United States. 

National Association of Cotton Manufac- 
turcrs 

National Association of Manufacturers. 

National Association of Wool Manufac- 
t u r g r s 

National Automobile Chamber of Com- 
nicrcG. 

National Boot and Shoe Manufacturers' 
Association. 

National Council for Industrial Defense. 

National Erectors' Association. 

National Founders' Association. 

National Implement and Vehicle Manu- 
facturers' Association. 

National Metal Trades Association. 

Rubber Association of America, Inc. 

Silk Association of America. 

United Typothetae and Franklin Clubs of 
America. 

In order that the statements and 



[39] 



recommendations which the Com- 
mittee here makes may be truly 
representative of industrial opinion, 
we have called to our counsel the 
executive heads of the foregoing 
seventeen national associations 
comprising in their membership 
more than eighteen thousand manu- 
facturers, representatives of a ma- 
jority of state associations of man- 
ufacturers, and, in addition, a 
large number of executive officers 
of industrial organizations engaged 
either directly or indirectly on the 
production of war essentials. These 
statements and recommendations 
express the unanimous opinion of 
this large body of representative 
manufacturers. 

In approaching a discussion of 
the relation of employer and em- 
ployee at this critical hour, we be- 
lieve we are animated by a spirit 
worthy of the time and place and 
the gravity of the circumstances, 
which makes an equitable and har- 
monious adjustment of employment 
relations a matter of national 
necessity. 

The Council of National Defense 
has deemed this subject of such 
consequence that it created a Com- 
mittee on Labor, substantially di- 
rected and controlled by represen- 
tatives of the largest national 
unions which, after due delibera- 
tion, issued through its executive 
committee a statement apparently 
intended to declare certain funda- 
mental policies of industrial rela- 
tionship which should apply during 
the period of the war. Perhaps the 
most important sentence of this 
statement was the declaration that 
"neither employers nor employees 
shall endeavor to take advantage of 
the country's necessities to change 
existing standards." Differences 
of interpretation and opinion led 



to a further amplification and ex- 
planation and accompanying dec- 
larations, which were endorsed by 
the Council of National Defense. 

These were to the effect, that 
standards of safety and service 
established by the State or Federal 
law should remain in effect unless 
and until, under the exigencies of 
war, the Council of National De- 
fense, after proper investigation, 
should recommend some modifica- 
tion as essential to the national 
safety. It was likewise urged that, 
inasmuch as the standard of living 
was particularly dependent upon 
the purchasing power of wages, no 
arbitrary wage change should be 
sought through the medium of 
strikes or lockouts by employer 
or employee without affording 
the established State or Federal 
mediums of arbitration or con- 
ciliation an opportunity to adjust 
disputes without stopping pro- 
duction, and it was especially 
urged that "employers and em- 
ployees in private industries should 
not attempt to take advantage of 
the existing abnormal conditions to 
change the standards which they 
were unable to change under nor- 
mal conditions. 

Despite these timely admoni- 
tions, we find ourselves entering the 
fifth month of war faced with un- 
precedented demands for war pro- 
duction, seriously interrupted and 
delayed by numerous strikes and 
threats of strikes in every part of 
the country, some of which are 
likely to assume the proportions of 
a national interruption of essential 
service in our factories and ship- 
yards. 

Let it be clearly understood that 
we, without equivocation, endorse 
the maintenance of every neces- 
sary regulation for safety and 



[40] 



health and the fair adjustment of 
wages in accordance with the 
American standard of living and 
the increasing cost of its main- 
tenance. So far as we know, the 
American manufacturer can and 
will pay any advance in wages 
which expresses corresponding la- 
bor efficiency. Hours of labor have 
been universally contracting under 
the influence of many causes, the 
chief of which has been the always 
increasing development of labor- 
saving machinery constantly multi- 
plying the producing power of hu- 
man effort. We enter the war with 
the average hours of labor in 
American manufacture, as shown 
by the Government Manufacturers 
census of 1914, very considerably 
less than the average hours of la- 
bor recommended for either sex in 
British industry in the Reports of 
the Health of Munition Workers 
Committee to the Minister of Muni- 
tions during 1916. 

We also submit that the Naval 
Consulting Board, reporting upon 
its preliminary investigation of 
manufacturing establishments cap- 
able of munition work, found the 
total number to be 18,654, and that 
of these 16,787, or 89% were 
"open" shops. Of 1,950 establish- 
ments usable for the manufacture 
of ammunition powder and explo- 
sives, guns and gun material, gun 
carriages, limbers and accessories, 
personal military equipment, tools, 
gauges and punches, machine tools 
and aeroplanes, all but 73 are 
"open" shops. (Senate Document 
No. 664, 64th Congress, 2nd Ses- 
sion, page 40.) 

With respect to wages, a great 
body of munition production for the 
Government proceeds under a con- 
tract wage law, assuring at least 
time and a half for all overtime in 



excess of eight hours, so that for 
like tasks industrial wages for war 
work are universally increased by 
the operation of statute in every 
plant whose contracts come within 
its scope. Antecedent to our en- 
trance into the war general wage 
increases in large amounts had been 
voluntarily given throughout the 
generally prosperous industries, so 
that it may be fairly said that our 
wage scale on the average was, ac- 
tually as well as nominally, greatly 
superior to that of any belligerent 
country. But despite this condition 
and the increase by statute of 
wages for the subject matter of our 
own war production, it is inevitable 
that wage differences will continue 
to arise. The vital thing is that 
such disputes shall be adjusted 
without interruption of production 
necessary to national defense. To 
this end we believe that manufac- 
turers are ready and anxious to co- 
operate in the establishment of a 
representative and equitable system 
of adjustment, for the period of 
the war. 

There are, however, other "stand- 
ards" of employment than those 
relating to hours and wages which 
are of critical importance not mere- 
ly to efficient production but to the 
institutions of a free people. 
Strikes are threatened and are oc- 
curring in increasing numbers to 
compel the exclusive employment 
of union men. This, we empha- 
tically urge, is contrary to any fair 
interpretation of the spirit and 
letter of the fundamental policy 
declared by the Council "that em- 
ployers and employees in private in- 
dustries should not attempt to 
change the standards which they 
were unable to change under nor- 
mal conditions." 

Can there be any doubt that to 



[41] 



undertake to open a "closed" shop 
or close an "open" shop under the 
exigencies of war is an evident 
attempt "to change the standard 
which they were unable to change 
under normal conditions?" This is 
the view frankly presented by Mr, 
Thomas, the English labor repre- 
sentative, in his suggestions to the 
Committee on Labor of the Advi- 
sory Commission of the Council of 
National Defense, when recom- 
mending conduct predicated upon 
his British experience, he declared, 
according to The American Federa- 
tionist for August of this year: 

"Let the employer say: 'I am not 
desirous of taking advantage of the 
war to break down something that I 
never believed in.' On the other hand, 
let the employees say: 'Whilst anxious 
to maintain the law, we are not anxi- 
ous to take advantage of the war to 
enforce something during the war that 
we could not obtain in peace times.' 
With both sides recognizing that, I 
repeat, I believe they will find a solu- 
tion.' 

Secretary of Labor Wilson ap- 
parently endorsed this view when 
on April 23d, 1917, in an explana- 
tory statement on behalf of the 
Council he said : "that where either 
an employer or an employee has 
been unable under normal condi- 
tions to change the standards to 
their own liking, they should not 
take advantage of the present ab- 
normal conditions to establish new 
standards." This, we urge, de- 
clares a sound policy and a fair 
interpretation for the Council to 
place upon its recommendation. 

Moreover there is a labor short- 
age which will necessarily be inten- 
sified by withdrawing from indus- 
try the personnel of its contribu- 
tion to our armed forces. In this 
crisis America needs the service of 
every citizen. We can no more de- 
pend upon one class to operate our 



factories than to fill the ranks of 
our armies. Therefore, it is incon- 
ceivable that the Government can 
tolerate, much less approve, any 
proposal which makes membership 
in a private organization a prereq- 
uisite to a citizen securing em- 
ployment in production for the war. 
All citizens, union or non-union, are 
equally entitled to, and must receive 
like consideration from their gov- 
ernment and equally enjoy the full 
protection of national authority in 
every circumstance of daily life. 
The assertion is untenable that a 
minority or a majority of em- 
ployees in any industry by volun- 
tarily associating themselves into 
an organization acquire authority 
or right over the equal liberty of 
those who do not care to do like- 
wise. As was said in a great pub- 
lic document: 

"This all seems too plain for argument. 
Common sense and common law alike 
denounce those who interfere with this 
fundamental right of the citizen. The 
assertion of the right seems trite and 
commonplace, but that land is blessed 
where the maxims of liberty are com- 
monplaces." 

(Report of Anthracite Coal Strike 
Commission, 1902.) 

To win this war we can sacrifice 
everything but the principles of the 
Republic and the fundamental 
rights of citizenship it was founded 
to protect. The right to pursue a 
lawful calling and to live free from 
annoyance and molestation is the 
primary if not the greatest privi- 
lege which society is founded to 
sustain. 

The British policy expressed in 
its Munition Acts is that all labor, 
whether it be that of the employer 
or the employee, of men or women, 
of union of non-union, of the skilled 
or unskilled, shall be employed to 
the best advantage of the country. 
Neither restriction nor discrimina- 



te] 



tion, nor, in "controlled shops," 
strikes or lockouts are permitted. 
A Ministry of Munitions is success- 
fully promoting the expeditious 
output of munitions by employing 
all the available labor to that end. 
With due regard to the plant and 
equipment of each establishment it 
has successfully subordinated con- 
flicts between employer and em- 
ployee to the winning of the war. 

To the same great end we pro- 
pose through you, in the presence 
of the public, that employer and 
employee, organized and unorgan- 
ized, shall pledge themselves to 
prevent strikes and lockouts, to 
deal rationally and unselfishly 
through a representative tribunal 
with serious wage disputes, and 
for the period of the war, not 
compel or attempt to compel dis- 
criminations in employment by 
strikes, threats of strikes or lock- 
outs. 

We further submit that under 
the present circumstances of na- 
tional necessity, it is the duty of 
both the manufacturer and of or- 
ganized labor to jointly cooperate 
with the Government that sedition 
in any of its manifold forms, 
whether masquerading in the name 
of labor or under any other guise, 
shall be ruthlessly exposed and sup- 
pressed. 

To epitomize our conclusions and 
recommendations we urge : 

1. That as a basis of mutual 
understanding employer and em- 
ployee recognize and agree that now 
and for the period of the war con- 
tinuous, efficient production can 
alone equip and sustain our mili- 
tary forces. Every dispute, what- 
ever its motive, which interrupts 
production, furthers the ends and 
operates to the advantage of" the 
public enemy. 



[43] 



2. The Nation needs the service 
of every citizen. Its industrial 
workers are as indispensable to vic- 
tory as the soldier on the firing 
line. The non-union man is as 
necessary in the factory as he is 
in the army. On economic as well 
as indisputable moral grounds the 
Government can, therefore, neither 
permit nor tolerate the exclusion of 
any laborer from productive em- 
ployment. We, therefore, urge the 
Council to adopt and re-assert as 
its guiding principle the funda- 
mental American doctrine authori- 
tatively stated by the Anthracite 
Coal Strike Commission with the 
approval of representatives of both 
employers and unions included in 
its membership and commended as 
the basis of industrial adjustments 
by Presidents Roosevelt, Taft and 
Wilson. 

"That no person shall be refused 
employment or in any way discrimi- 
nated against on account of member- 
ship or non-membership in any labor 
organization; that there shall be no 
discrimination against, or interference 
with, any employee who is not a mem- 
ber of any labor organization by mem- 
bers of such organization." 

3. The Council's reiterated re- 
commendation that 

employers and employees in private 
industries should not attempt to take 
advantage of the existing abnormal con- 
ditions to change the standards which 
they were unable to change under nor- 
mal conditions," 

should now receive an unambig- 
uous interpretation to assure its 
practical application as a working 
principle. To this end we propose : 

(a) That applied to existing stat- 
utory regulations intended to promote 
safety and health, it shall be agreed 
that for the period of the war there 
shall be no suspension or modification 
of such provisions, except upon recom- 
mendation of the Council of National 
Defense after due investigation by its 
agencies and when, in its judgment, re- 
quired by the exigencies of war; 



(6) Applied to wages, demands shall 
be tested by the prevailing local stand- 
ard of the establishment in effect at the 
beginning of the war with such modifi- 
cation as may be shown to be necessary 
to meet any demonstrated advance in 
the cost of living. 

(c) Applied to hours, the standard 
shall be those established by statute or 
prevailing in the establishment at the 
beginning of the war subject to change 
only when in the opinion of the Council 
of Defense it is necessary to meet the 
requirements of the Government. 

(d) Applied to what are commonly 
known as "open" or closed" shop con- 
ditions, it shall be understood and 
agreed that every employer entering 
the period of the war with a union 
shop shall not by a lockout or other 
means undertake to alter such condi- 
tions for the duration of the war, nor 
shall any combination of workmen un- 
dertake during the like period to "close" 
an "open" shop. 

4. Adopting these standards as 
the basis of its operation, we recom- 
mend the creation of a Federal 
board to adjust labor disputes for 
the duration of the war ; the activi- 
ties of this Board to be confined to 
disputes growing out of employ- 
ment on the subject matter of war 
production for the Government. To 
such board shall be primarily re- 
ferred for final settlement all major 
disputes of the nature suggested 
with full power to create all ma- 
chinery necessary to execute its 
functions. Its decisions must bind 
all parties to the dispute. It should 
be constituted equally of represen- 
tatives of employees, employers and 
the Government, representatives of 
the latter to hold the deciding voice 
in the event of an equal division of 
opinion. It is to be further under- 
stood and agreed that there shall 
be no interruption of production by 
strike, lockout or other means 
within the control of employer or 
employee. 

5. We pledge to the country, 
through you, the acceptance of such 
a program by the great body of 

[44] 



representative associations and in- 
dividual manufacturers we are 
authorized to represent. We do not 
seek to be regarded as the exclusive 
spokesman of all industry and will 
cooperate in any helpful capacity 
with any and every manufacturer 
whether members of our associa- 
tion or not. 

6. To secure in the public inter- 
est a mutual understanding and 
agreement predicated upon the pro- 
posals set forth, we suggest: That 
the Council of National Defense 
call, at the earliest convenient date, 
a conference of representative na- 
tional and international officers of 
American trade unions that they 
may be requested to join in the 
pledge here made on behalf of em- 
ployers. Their loyal cooperation 
for the duration of the war will as- 
sure a known standard of conduct 
to govern these vital industrial re- 
lations. The national safety will 
then no longer be imperilled by dis- 
putes, halting vital production and 
necessarily operating to give aid 
and assistance to the public enemy. 

We reiterate in conclusion the 
pressing necessity for recognizing 
one vital and primary principle. A 
Government which cannot itself 
discriminate between its citizens 
cannot tolerate a condition which 
encourages private organizations 
to compel such discrimination. Po- 
litically and economically such a 
policy spells disaster. It desroys 
the responsibility of management 
which is vital to successful produc- 
tion and denies in our own democ- 
racy the basic principles of indi- 
vidual liberty and opportunity, for 
which its citizens since the founda- 
tion of the Republic have shed 
freely of their blood and for which 
today they are prepared to die on 
alien soil. 



Signed on behalf of the National 
Industrial Conference Board by its 
Executive Committee and its Advi- 
sory Committee: 

Executive Committee: 
Loyall A. Osborne, 

Chairman, 
Frederick P. Fish, 
William H. Barr, 
A. Lawrence Fell, 
Charles Cheney, 
Magnus W. Alexander, 

Executive Secretary 

Advisory Committee: 
Loyall A. Osborne, 

Chairman, 
William H. Barr, 
W. H. Van Dervoort, 
C. A. Crocker, 
Ellison A. Smyth, 
W. A. Layman. 

Endorsed by the following associ- 
ations not members of the Confer- 
ence Board: 



California Metal Trades Association, San 
Francisco, Cal. 

Manufacturers' Association of Connecti- 
cut, Inc., Hartfori, Conn. 

Manufacturers' Association of Bridge- 
port, Bridgeport, Conn. 

Georgia Manufacturers' Association, At- 
lanta, Georgia. 

Illinois Manufacturers' Association, Chi- 
cago, 111. 

Indiana Manufacturers' Association, In- 
dianapolis, Ind. 

Iowa State Manufacturers' Association, 
Des Moines, Iowa. 

Kentucky Manufacturers' & Shippers' 
Association, Louisville, Kentucky. 

Associated Industries of Massachusetts, 
Boston, Mass. 

Michigan Manufacturers' Association, 
Detroit, Michigan. 

Associated Employers of Missouri, St. 
Louis, Mo. 

Nebraska Manufacturers' Association, 
Lincoln, Neb. 

Manufacturers' Association of New Jer- 
sey, Trenton, N. J. 

Associated Manufacturers of Electrical 
Supplies, New York, N. Y. 

Associated Manufacturers & Merchants 
of the State of New York, Syracuse, 
N. Y. 

Ohio Manufacturers' Association, Colum- 
bus, Ohio. 

Associated Employers of Oregon, Port- 
land, Oregon. 

Pennsylvania Manufacturers' Associa- 
tion, Philadelphia, Pa. 

Steel Founders Society of America, Pitts- 
burgh, Pa. 

Cotton Manufacturers' Association of 
South Carolina, Greenville, S. C. 



Tennessee Manufacturers' Association, 

Nashville, Tenn. 
Employers' Association of Washington, 

Seattle, Washington. 
United Metal Trades Association of the 

Pacific Coast, Seattle, Washington. 

Mr. Samuel Gompers, President of 
the American Federation of Labor, in 
their organ, The American Federa- 
tionist of October, 1917, wrote editori- 
ally as follows: 

"In marked contrast to the con- 
structive proposal of the British 
Committee is the recommendation 
submitted by the National Indus- 
trial Conference Board to the Coun- 
cil of National Defense. That rec- 
ommendation demonstrates that 
the autocrats of America are eco- 
nomic. Like the old Bourbon des- 
pots, they have learned nothing and 
forgotten nothing. Their program 
proposes to assure to employers 
war opportunities for exploitations 
and the aggrandizement of special 
privileges. By carefully selected 
phrases and terms they thought to 
conceal their real purpose. They 
are opposed to progress, to democ- 
racy, and to constructive organic 
action in furtherance of human 
opportunities. 

Special privileges and economic 
exploitation in this country have 
been established and maintained 
through industrial capitalist autoc- 
racy. Employers have sought to 
prevent employees from collective 
bargaining and enlightened coop- 
eration in accord with an estab- 
lished program. Under the pre- 
tense that they were maintaining 
individual liberty, employers have 
sought to enforce a so-called "open 
shop" policy in order to crush out 
labor organizations, but labor or- 
ganizations are something more 
than the term and significance usu- 
ally applied to trade unions by their 
opponents; they represent a great 
aspiration of masses of people for 



[45] 



higher ideals of living and for the 
opportunity to have a voice in de- 
termining those things which affect 
them vitally and which are the 
basis of all living. 

The proposal of the National In- 
dustrial Conference Board to the 
Council of National Defense is ex- 
pressed in terms that imply criti- 
cism of the motives of trade union- 
ists in contrast with the "patriotic 
altruistic" purposes of employers. 
The organization that presented the 
proposal is the one organized last 
Fall and heralded in the paper as 
the Eight Billion Dollar Corpora- 
tion which would make a campaign 
to exterminate the American labor 
movement. The National Indus- 
trial Conference Board is a federa- 
tion of employers' associations 
which include the following: 

American Cotton Manufacturers' Asso- 
ciation. 

American Paper and Pulp Association. 

Electrical Manufacturers' Club. 

Manufacturing Chemists' Association of 
the United States. 

National Association of Cotton Manufac- 
turers. 

National Association of Manufacturers. 

National Association of Wool Manufac- 
turers. 

National Automobile Chamber of Com- 
merce. 

National Boot and Shoe Manufacturers' 
Association. 

National Council for Industrial Defense. 

National Erectors' Association. 

National Founders' Association. 

National Metal Trades Association. 

Rubber Association of America, Inc. 

Silk Association of America. 

United Typothetae and Franklin Clubs of 
America. 

These facts made it evident that 
the declared purpose in the pro- 
posal can not be accepted as genu- 
ine and can only be interpreted in 
the light of the known practices 
and methods of these organizations. 
Because these employers see in a 
war for democracy an opportunity 
for a great forward movement in 
establishing human opportunities, 
they come with a plan which pro- 
poses to take advantage of the war 
to block the forward movement of 

[ 



humanity. They accuse organized 
labor of desiring to take advantage 
of the war to advance the cause of 
humanity and make a counter- 
proposition that the war be taken 
advantage of to block the progress 
of humanity. 

The N. I. C. B., as well as the rest 
of us, well know that life must go 
either backward or forward ; it can- 
not stand still. While proposing 
stagnation during the period of the 
war, during the time when all social 
and economic forces are fluid and 
may crystallize into the form they 
will take for decades to come, they 
propose that existing conditions, in 
accord with old concepts in the 
practices of exploitation, shall be 
fastened upon the working people, 
like shackles, during the period of 
the war— AND THEREAFTER. 

This is the truce that they pro- 
pose, to manacle the working people 
during the period that ought to 
mean almost inconceivable progress 
for humanity and democracy. Ac- 
ceptance of this proposal is unthink- 
able. Even if any constituted au- 
thority should attempt to bind and 
tie the working people to be ex- 
ploited by this Eight Billion Dollar 
Corporation, it would fail. No gov- 
ernment and no agency can or ought 
to check the natural aspirations of 
men and women for a higher life 
and greater opportunity and 
greater liberty!" 

Hasten the Remedy 

It must be evident that America's 
Labor problem is as complicated as 
the human being himself, but that 
is no good reason for delaying co- 
ordination of labor investigation 
and control under one head as free 
from entanglement and red tape 
46] 



as possible. No greater single prob- also that Arbitration Courts had 

lem lies before Congress, our Admin- proved of great educational value; 

istration or the country at the pres- that wages had greatly increased 

ent time. based upon actual living conditions, 

Sir William A. Holman, Prime but that business had never been so 

Minister of New South Wales, who prosperous. He laid the greatest 

has recently been in this country, stress upon the importance of having 

stated that 50% of all Australia's every labor difficulty receive inime- 

labor troubles during the past ten diate attention and investigation and 

years had been settled without strikes ; the remedy applied without delay. 



[47] 



VII 

The Alien Problem 



Our national government contacts 
with the alien in at least sixteen dif- 
ferent ways through fourteen differ- 
ent bureaus and divisions in the De- 
partments of State, Treasury, Post 
Office, Interior, Agriculture, Com- 
merce and Labor. The alien is in 
every community and in every activ- 
ity of our national life. Our govern- 
ment has apparently never looked 
upon the alien as constituting a un- 
ified problem, but has acted upon the 
innumerable phases as they appeared 
in a disconnected way. 

The most constructive work that 
has been done toward the assimilation 
of the alien into our American society 
has been carried on with private 
funds by private organizations, such 
as the National Americanization Com- 
mittee, the Immigration Committee 
of the Chamber of Commerce of the 
United States, and others. Even some 
of the alien work being done by the 
government is possible only by the 
use of private contributions. Thought- 
ful Americans have for years endeav- 
ored to arouse a national interest in 
this problem, upon the happy solu- 
tion of which America's future in the 
world so largely depends. 

As soon as we entered the war, re- 
peated efforts were made to induce the 
Council of National Defense to ap- 
point an Alien Committee. With one- 1 
third of our entire population either 
of foreign birth or with at least one 
foreign parent, with little knowledge 
of the undercurrent of national sympa- 
thies in the hearts of many of these 
millions, the great war, even before 
we entered it, greatly increased the 
importance and danger of this alien 
problem. 

[ 



Over three million of our popula- 
tion cannot speak English. About 
fourteen million are German born or 
of German descent, and they appear 
in every profession and industry and 
in every occupation from those of the 
highest skill to those of the meanest 
manual labor. 

Shortly after America entered the 
war, one of our greatest authorities 
on the immigrant visited a large ship- 
yard and learned that although the 
management knew how many enemy 
aliens there were in the establishment, 
no investigation had been made as to 
the location of those aliens. When it 
was found that over forty of the 
enemy were in the power plant where 
a small amount of destruction might 
have crippled the entire yard and that 
equivalent numbers were in other vul- 
nerable departments, the dangerous 
condition was quickly relieved. 

Delay in deciding to place officers 
and crews of merchant vessels under 
some sort of military control has re- 
sulted in the loss and surrender of 
vessels by cowardly or enemy crews. 

A prominent railroad president was 
asked if he knew whether there were 
enemy aliens in his round houses, sig- 
nal towers or working about bridges 
and tunnels; the thought had never 
entered his mind. To the National 
Board of Fire Underwriters considera- 
tion of the alien as a fire risk was 
suggested. The fact that enemy aliens 
were being discharged, left without 
means of support or even places to 
live, aggravated the situation. Some- 
times they were permitted to remain 
in vulnerable industries when they 
might have been shifted to places 
where they could do no harm. The 
48] 



whole situation was complicated and 
the remedies were left to individual 
initiative to apply. 

Although a mass of information, 
suggestion and definite recommen- 
dation have been accumulated and put 
in the hands of our government, this 
problem yet remains uncentralized. 
The importance of the alien as one of 
our largest sources of labor cannot be 
overemphasized. Our enemies, the I. 
W. W. and other agitators, have been 
permitted to focus attention upon the 
alien while we have neglected simple 
measures which would go far to 
change the alien from a menace to 
an unqualified national asset. Ade- 
quate attention to this problem might 
minimize the threatened emigration 
of many alien workers (estimated at 
3,000,000 males alone) after the war. 

Twenty million people have reached 
America via the steerage but yet we 
have failed to consider this a national 
problem. Schools exist in this coun- 
try where it is impossible for the 
pupil to learn the English language 
or use the English spelling book. 

To those unfamiliar with this con- 
dition Professor Edward A. Steiner's 



book, "Nationalizing America," would 
prove a revelation. 

Our Army officers are already con- 
fronted with the difficulty of making 
many of our drafted soldiers under- 
stand commands and instructions in 
English. Efforts are being made by 
the Department of Education, with 
State cooperation, to improve this 
condition. Under the war powers of 
the Federal Government it would 
seem as if teaching of the English 
language in every city and village 
throughout the land could be made 
compulsory. 

And what of the poor bewildered 
alien himself? With no place to go 
for general and authoritative infor- 
mation, exposed to the machinations 
of spy and agitator, of profiteer and 
corruptionist — ought we not commend 
those great millions for their steadi- 
ness of purpose and action, their loy- 
alty and decency under trying condi- 
tions? Our debt to them rests with 
the future and American patriots for 
payment. As yet we have not even 
provided a place where they can surely 
obtain official translation into their 
own languages of the President's 
proclamations aimed at them. 



[49] 



VIII 

Intelligence Service 



There are in Washington at least eight 
Secret Service or Intelligence func- 
tions, each headed up to a cabinet of- 
ficer and all uncoordinated save 
through gentlemen's agreements and 
individual cooperation. Jealousy ex- 
ists not only between the individual 
organizations themselves, but the Cab- 
inet officers cannot agree upon a plan 
of coordination. It is rumored that 
every Cabinet officer concerned favors 
coordination, but that several of them 
think their own departments should 
be the coordinating mechanism. Thus, 
it is said Secretary Lansing would 
like to have the intelligence efforts 
head up to his department because he 
controls some international contacts. 
Some of the Post Office Department 
officials are said to believe that the 
Post Office Department, being the 
largest intelligence mechanism, should 
be the head. The Treasury Depart- 
ment, where the secret service origin- 
ated, might reasonably expect leader- 
ship. Most of the work, however, has 
been done by the Department of Jus- 
tice, which does not desire to be in- 
terfered with. And so the chaotic 
condition is permitted to continue. 

The public has admired the ef- 
ficiency of our Federal intelligence 
work, unwitting that many of its ac- 
credited -successes have been due to 
foreign intelligence organizations and 
to the efforts of private citizens and 
organizations. The Providence Jour- 
nal, under the leadership of its inde- 
fatigable editor, John R. Rathom, has 
apparently at times almost driven our 
Federal service to activity. Bitter 
complaint exists today on the part of 
some of our intelligence organizations 
against the Department of Justice, 



which is said merely to punish rather 
than prevent enemy activity. The 
number of suspected spies who have 
been taken into custody and then re- 
leased in spite of considerable sus- 
picion remaining is said to have been 
contrary to the action of most of our 
allies under similar circumstances. 
TheNew YorkTimes of December 24th, 
1917, editorially condemns releasing 
prominent Germans on parole, claim- 
ing that they are either innocent or 
guilty and that parole meets neither 
condition; that spies are prepared to 
lie and the periodical reporting by the 
men on parole needs only willingness 
to lie to enable them to continue dan- 
gerous spy activities if they so desire. 

What Disaster? 

At the recent Canadian Club dinner 
in New York Mr. Rathom said: 

"The Secret Service of the United 
States and the Bureau of Investiga- 
tion of the Department of Justice 
— the two official weapons, and the 
only two, which stand between our 
people and disaster at home — are 
ridiculously undermanned and ridic- 
ulously underpaid. The loyalty and 
intelligence of these men is beyond 
question. The lack of facilities for 
their work and for the scope of 
their work is a national disgrace. 
The entire sum paid by the United 
States to maintain these two vitally 
important bureaus per annum is 
actually less than the amount of 
money paid by Ambassador Bern- 
storff per month for German Secret 
Service operations in the City of 
New York alone. The financial loss 
entailed by the Baltimore fire is 



[SO] 



probably four times the entire an- 
nual cost of both of these bureaus. 
What terrible calamity must we go 
through, what immense destruction 
of war materials vital to our future 
freedom must we see before we deal 
with this question with a stern and 
unyielding hand and with a deter- 
mination to stamp out treachery 
wherever it shows its head?" 

Last August a carefully studied 
plan for circumventing dangerous en- 
emy activities in grain elevators, food 
factories and other important elements 
in our food supply system was pre- 
sented to Mr. Hoover's department 
with the statement that since America 
entered the war destruction of grain 
elevators had increased 300%. This 
statement was corroborated by infor- 
mation in the possession of the Food 
Administration and the importance of 
action in this field was admitted. The 
question arose, however, as to whether 
the Department of Justice was not 
covering the field and whether addi- 
tional activity by the Food Adminis- 
tration would be welcome. The plan 
was not put into effect, although vari- 
ous efforts have been made by the 
Food Administration to meet this dan- 
ger. The fact remains, however, that 
since last August the destruction of 
food has been going on at a terrific 
pace and the statement has been made 
that in one period of thirty days food 
to the value of thirty million dollars 
was destroyed. 

This is a difficult field to discuss 
frankly in public. Perhaps an investi- 
gation behind closed doors by one of 
the Congressional investigating com- 
mittees would go far toward pointing 
out weaknesses and overcoming per- 
sonal prejudices and jealousies. It 
might result in the coordination, un- 
der a real Intelligence Chief, essential 
not only to our national war plans, but 



also to the safety of thousands of 
American lives and hundreds of mil- 
lions of dollars' worth of American 
property constantly menaced by the 
continuation of present conditions. 

Below is an incomplete list of the 
damage to American life and property 
caused by enemy aliens prior to our 
entering the war. This is taken from 
"A Few Lines of Recent American 
History" issued by the Providence 
Journal. 

1915-1916-part of 1917. 

Munitions Plants 

Explosions 49 

Fires 17 

Killed 147 

Hurt 142 

Loss (only a few losses are 
mentioned, 14 given) $35,000,000 

Ships — Fires 

En route 15 

In port 13 

Killed (1 case only) 12 

Loss (1 case only) $3,000,000 

Trains 

Wrecked 2 

Killed 5 

Miscellaneous 

Munition manufacturer's house 
bombed 1 

Canal plot discovered 1 

Private homes, plot discovered 2 

This pamphlet clearly shows the 
need of Congressional investigation in 
this field. It is enlightening to com- 
pare our safeguards with the bold 
measures Canada and Great Britain 
have taken. 

Even the individual intelligence de- 
partments are sometimes in danger of 
having their activities seriously weak- 
ened through lack of understanding of 
the situation. For instance, the Army 
Intelligence would probably have had 
its activities almost entirely sus- 
pended had not, through the assistance 



[51] 



of private individuals and newspaper 
men, the appropriation of $489,000 for 
continuation of its work been squeezed 
into the appropriations bill during the 
last days of the last session of Con- 
gress. It was supposed that the pre- 
vious appropriation would carry the 
department along until the next Con- 
gress could consider the matter of fur- 
ther appropriation, but a better under- 
standing of conditions would probably 
have caused the last Congress to in- 
crease the appropriation rather than 
to think of eliminating it. 

The greater the changes in the 
world, the greater is the need of in- 
formation from all parts of the world, 
focusing in Washington and made 
available in condensed form for our 
leading executives to use as a basis 
for their national and international 
policies. Our foreign intelligence 
service is totally inadequate to this 
need. Most of our enemies, and, in 
fact, most of our allies, have more 
accurate and far-reaching informa- 
tion about the rest of the world than 
have we. Private individuals and 
corporations are in some instances 
trying to assist, but no thorough plan 
to organize those auxiliary assistants 
under centralized government leader- 
ship has yet appeared. More than ever 
before, International relationships 
will be largely affected by national ad- 



vertising and national interpretation 
of events. 

Japan, during her Russian war, ad- 
vertised in this country to obtain the 
favor of American public opinion, and 
it proved such a good investment that 
she has greatly expanded such activi- 
ties.* Only efficient intelligence serv- 
ice can counteract the danger of such 
influence being misused. 

Any one who has been privileged to 
look over the mass of German propa- 
ganda gathered in the British Postal 
Censorship Building in London is over- 
whelmed by the scope and ramifica- 
tions of the German propaganda or 
national advertising system. In 
every language and many dialects of 
the world, addressed to every religious 
faith, arousing the accumulated prej- 
udices of centuries, this German 
propaganda knows no moral limits, 
contradicts itself where necessary to 
justify the German state and German 
aims. Deceptive, lying, misrepre- 
senting, the whole world has visibly 
tasted its results. Many of these 
results will be continuing and can 
only be overcome by honest coun- 
ter-propaganda. This is indeed a na- 
tional and international problem of a 
critical sort and upon the successful 
solution of it depends the future peace 
of the world. 

*Read Montaville Flowers' "The Japanese 
Conquest of American Opinion." 



I5§] 



IX 

Contracts 



When one pauses to consider that the 
billions of dollars being expended for 
war work in America are largely rep- 
resented by innumerable individual 
contracts, the importance of having a 
few fundamental principles applied to 
contracts, as far as possible, must at 
once be admitted. Many contracts 
have been prepared in haste with sat- 
isfactory results. Others have had 
ample consideration and are yet un- 
satisfactory. Some contracts, whether 
drawn hastily or not, have proven emi- 
nently fair to both sides. Through the 
contract it is possible to direct and 
control many of the industrial and so- 
cial conditions which the Federal gov- 
ernment desires to control, especially 
during the war. It has been proposed, 
for instance, that all Army and Navy 
contracts should include clauses guar- 
anteeing adequate working conditions 
for the employees of the contractor, 
also adequate precaution against fire, 
delay, damage by enemy activities and 
various other items. In addition to 
such considerations, the inclusion of 
clauses to insure maximum speed 
based upon maximum incentive, with 
adequate protection against excessive 
profits, should receive general at- 
tention. 

Our contracts for cantonments built 
on a "cost plus" basis, in no case, as far ' 
as we are aware, contained adequate 
provision against excessive cost. Many 
investigators pointed to intolerable 
loafing by workmen, inefficient use of 
horses, steam shovels and other equip- 
ment, partly because the United States 
was footing the bills and superintend- 
ents and foremen, if not the contrac- 
tors themselves, were willing to have 
costs unnecessarily high. Such lack 

[53 



of patriotism not only increased cost, 
delayed completion of the cantonments, 
but also hampered other war produc- 
tion. It is unnecessary to criticise any 
individuals or groups, because all 
classes in this country have been, to 
a certain extent, open to similar 
charges. Profiteering in one form or 
another has permeated every class of 
society, from the lowliest workman to 
the wealthiest official. Fortunately, 
self-sacrificing patriotism has been 
visible in greater degree as the criti- 
cal nature of the war and the vast 
stake the Americans have in it become 
more apparent. No one questions the 
ultimate patriotism, to whatever de- 
gree necessary, on the part of practi- 
cally every American. More careful 
business management, use of ordinary 
business method and precaution would 
automatically obviate not only the op- 
portunity, but the excuse for much of 
this profiteering. 

Contracts for supplies have often 
been loaded upon a comparatively few 
plants, whereas systematic distribu- 
tion would have produced quicker de- 
deliveries and less disturbance of 
established production. Thus shoe con- 
tracts have at times entirely disrupted 
the business of going concerns which 
accepted orders under patriotic im- 
pulse while their competitors were left 
undisturbed. 

In some of the shipbuilding con- 
tracts drawn by the Shipping Board, 
provision was made for reward in case 
of exceptional speed of construction 
and for forfeit in event of excessive 
delay. Bonus and forfeit contracts are 
not new to the business world and are 
fair, when properly drawn, to both par- 
ties concerned. Several of the can- 

] 



tonment contractors have admitted 
that such provisions could have been 
included in the cantonment contracts. 
This omission has cost the nation mil- 
lions of dollars, unrealized delay and 
bad examples, of which the effect on 
the country is beyond estimate. 

Apply General Principles 

It would not be difficult to provide 
a Committee of Contract Experts, in- 
vested with the responsibility for hav- 
ing certain fundamental principles ap- 
plied in all contracts, as far as possible, 
and have this committee used in an 
advisory capacity by every department 
making contracts. Such a committee 
would probably centralize and formu- 
late many of the difficulties which are 
constantly causing delays, misunder- 
standings, incrimination and put in 
the hands of our leading executives 
material for formulating policies 
which would help to clarify the whole 
field of war preparation; and it is not 
too much to say that they could scarce- 



ly fail to point out "follow-up" and 
various checking methods that would 
by foresight prevent delays in pur- 
chasing, production and delivery. 

One sometimes gets the impression 
that our executives face their prob- 
lems primarily from a politician's 
standpoint. One of our leading execu- 
tives urging a contractor to double his 
contract but to accept his original limi- 
tation of profit, argued that Congress 
and the country would look askance at 
one organization receiving such a large 
amount in profits. This was a remark- 
able spectacle of a man entrusted with 
spending hundreds of millions of dol- 
lars of the people's money, urging that 
a big order should receive no more 
profit than an order half the size. Can 
we not rely upon the country approv- 
ing of any arrangement, founded upon 
a fair and just understanding, whether 
it be with individual or corporation 
and whether it be for $10 or $100,000,- 
000? Can a business war be won by 
neglecting business principles? 



[54] 



X 



Transportation 



As modern war has proved to be a 
war of industry, transportation natu- 
rally became the keystone of the arch 
of military strength. Recognizing the 
importance of transportation, the 
Council of National Defense appointed 
one of its seven Advisory Commis- 
sioners Chairman of its Transporta- 
tion Committee. The Advisory Com- 
mission of the Council of National 
Defense held its organization meeting 
early in December, 1916, and shortly 
afterward its various leading commit- 
tees were formed. 

Upon invitation of Secretary Baker, 
each Governor of a State was re- 
quested to attend a conference to be 
held in Washington the first week in 
May, 1917. At that time Mr. Daniel 
Willard was not only Chairman of the 
Committee on Transportation, but was 
also Chairman of the Advisory Com- 
mission itself. As Chairman of the 
Commission, he explained to the Gov- 
ernors and their representatives 
(there were ten Governors and direct 
representatives of thirty-eight others 
present) the apportionment of re- 
sponsibility among the Advisory Com- 
missioners and then outlined the work 
of the Transportation Committee. A 
sub-committee on Railroads had been 
appointed and its activities were de- 
scribed at some length. A sub-com- 
mittee on Electric Railways had re- 
cently been appointed and its plans 
were set forth. A third sub-commit- 
tee on Inland Waterways was soon to 
be appointed and the fourth of the 
fundamentally important transporta- 
tion sub-committees, that on High- 
ways, would later receive considera- 
tion. 

Practically every State represented 



in this conference was much interested 
in road improvement. Some had large 
appropriations for this purpose, others 
were discussing them. All wished to 
know what the Federal Government 
desired. It was expected that there 
would be plans for a national road- 
building campaign, insuring concen- 
tration of energy upon roads of na- 
tional military or industrial impor- 
tance and elimination of unnecessary 
construction. Did war needs necessi- 
tate special construction of roads or 
strengthening of bridges or changing 
of tunnels and culverts? All of these 
questions remained unanswered and 
the Governors were left to use their 
own best judgment. This was a prob- 
lem which had received considerable 
notice in the public press, but yet had 
escaped the attention in Washington 
necessary for working out a central- 
ized plan for war needs. 

Five months after the Advisory 
Commission had been organized, a 
committee on Inland Waterways still 
remained to be appointed. In the 
meantime, information on this subject 
was desired and another department 
of the Advisory Commission carried 
on some investigations which properly 
belonged to the Transportation Com- 
mittee. The Highway Committee was 
appointed in November, 1917, eleven 
months after the Advisory Commis- 
sion organized. 

The subject of river and harbor im- 
provements and the development of 
inland water transportation is rather 
an unhappy one for Americans to con- 
sider. While our greatest commercial 
rivals have been carrying to a high 
state of development such facilities in 
their own countries, America has per- 



[55; 



mitted the competitive system carried 
out by the railroads to overshadow 
completely the advantages of water 
transportation. With the finest sys- 
tem of waterways in the world trav- 
ersing our fertile plains and connect- 
ing our storehouses of mineral wealth, 
we have spurned this help of nature in 
simplying our national carrying prob- 
lem. The policy of Congress, forced 
by public demand, has been competi- 
tion among the railroads. This is pri- 
marily responsible for our unbalanced 
transportation development, which in 
time of war is reducing our military 
strength by a terrifying percentage. 

The Railroads War Board have done 
magnificent work under tremendous 
difficulty, correcting many abuses of 
the past, and, as far as lay within 
their power and experience, elimina- 
ting the gaps and stone walls built up 
by competitive antagonisms. The more 
intelligent of our railroad leaders 
frankly admit that this method has 
distinct limitations and that some sort 
of government control or supervision 
was necessary before even a unified 
railroad system could be attained. It 
has been so largely within the power 
of railroads to kill water competition 
that it was folly to expect private cap- 
ital out of sheer patriotism to invest 
the large sums necessary in quickly de- 
veloping water transportation. This 
can only be done under government 
control and with national funds; and 
then the same assistance is needed to 
dovetail water transportation into rail 
transportation to produce an effective 
combination of facility and operation. 

The same remarks apply in some- 
what lesser degree to the electric rail- 
ways, although these have not been 
feared and fought to the same degree 
as water carriers, because they were 
less dangerous competitors owing to 
their higher cost of operation. 



Facilities Neglected 

Another transportation mechanism 
which has been sadly neglected by 
Washington is the motor truck. A 
vehicle capable of dodging congested 
districts and thoroughfares, able to 
sidetrack crowded terminals, should 
have received from the beginning of 
our transportation troubles persistent 
and profound study and application on 
the part of the men to whom the nation 
was looking to solve our transporta- 
tion problems. Our transportation 
leaders are visibly the railroad men, 
but unfortunately most of them have 
limited their sense of responsibility 
to railroad transportation and have 
minimized the importance of the aux- 
iliary services. It has long been with- 
in the power of the railroads to organ- 
ize modern truck service in such ways 
as largely to solve that ever-present 
difficulty, the congested terminal. 
Many of our cities are today crowded 
with trucks inefficiently used, which, 
if organized under railroad leadership 
could greatly increase their usefulness 
and relieve not only the crowded 
streets but also much of the congestion 
in our freight depots and yards. 

Unfortunately, it remains for pri- 
vate initiative to organize service, lo- 
cal, inter-community and even inter- 
state. This, however, is being done 
and through this private initiative 
such service will probably be ultimate- 
ly harmonized with that of our estab- 
lished carriers. In similar fashion 
private initiative, supported by the be- 
lated Highways Committee, is obtain- 
ing improvement of important high- 
ways, involving application of State 
funds and doing the many other acts 
which our national emergency has 
forced upon the individual or State 
because the Federal officials did not 
rise to their opportunity. 

In the production of rolling stock so 



[56] 



badly needed, the same type of inef- 
ficiency is visible. Recently, while Rus- 
sian orders for rolling stock were be- 
ing cancelled, the factories that had 
been working on those orders were 
facing idleness. Prompt action ac- 
cording to the press had not been 
taken to insure speeding up rather 
than slowing down of such production. 
Meanwhile the railroads had long 
been spending millions of dollars be- 
longing to their stockholders to foster 
public good-will, sometimes to empha- 
size their virtues in relatively unim- 
portant matters, rather than drawing 
attention to fundamental coordination 
of all transportation facilities under 
governmental direction, and under 
laws and regulations calculated to ben- 
efit and protect all interests concerned. 
The Farmers' Non-Partisan League 
last summer had an educational book- 
let prepared for distribution to its 
members showing the expenditures by 
railroads and other great corporations 
to influence public opinion not always, 
from the farmer's point of view, to the 
advantage of the public. 

Real Standardization 

Raiload men think that they have 
applied most of the benefits of that 
misunderstood term "standardization." 
They have scarcely scratched the sur- 
face. Pooling of the facilities, knowl- 
edge and personnel of the railway 
equipment builders, simplification of 
design, application of the engineering 
knowledge which has been applied to 
many industries for the handling of 
material have as yet received only 
superficial attention as far as visible 
results show in the railroad field. 

Henry Ford, the man who in one 
year produces one million vehicles 
capable of carrying 50% of their 
weight over country roads, criticises 
the railroads for being years behind 

[ 



the times in utilizing modern knowl- 
edge of light alloys and structural 
principles which would permit their 
freight and passenger cars to carry 
a much heavier load compared with 
the weight of the rolling stock itself. 

"Passenger trains," says Ford, 
weigh 50 to 150 times as much as the 
passengers in them. Four-fifths of a 
railroad's work today is hauling the 
dead weight of its own wastefully 
heavy engines and cars. This is why 
railroad presidents have such a hard 
time to figure out freight and passen- 
ger rates on the 20% of live load to 
cover the cost of hauling this enor- 
mous 80% of dead weight around." 

Strange as it may seem, with the 
partial exception of coal and iron, the 
railroads have not applied engineering 
knowledge to the bulk handling of 
many of the commodities they carry. 
It is an inspiring sight to see an entire 
car loaded with coal or iron ore picked 
up bodily and its contents dumped al- 
most instantly into a storage pile or 
the hold of a vessel. Hopper bottom 
coal cars have released thousands of 
laborers for other service, but we are 
still piling box cars full of grain and 
patching up the grain doors when they 
get out of repair. When the question 
was put to a leading railroad presi- 
dent recently "Why do you not load 
grain through the roof and empty it 
through the bottom of a car," the an- 
swer was "We have never yet suc- 
ceeded in making an opening through 
the roof of a car and keeping it tight 
against the weather." And this in the 
day of the submarine! 

Many of the wonderful engineering 
achievements at Panama must be cred- 
ited to railroad engineers, but the 
daring and vision of Panama are large- 
ly lacking on the railroads themselves. 
Should not this entire transportation 
problem with all of its ramifications 
be considered today from a national 
57] 



standpoint, every effort, every idea 
coordinated and rapid progress forced 
by pressure intelligently applied 
through individuals or committees re- 
sponsible for progress in the entire 
war effort of the country ? What court 
of appeal has been provided to prevent 
overlooking of important possibilities ? 

Let us hope that Mr. McAdoo will 
provide a Construction and Engineer- 
ing Committee to consider the pooling 
of all the national production and en- 
gineering resources that might assist 
in obtaining the maximum output and 
simplicity of rolling stock as well as 
a general improvement in efficiency 
and economy in the field of freight 
handling by mechanical means. 

A ruling by the Priority Committee 
prohibiting railroads from transport- 
ing road building material is said to 
have been promulgated upon two or 
three days' notice. As a result several 
road building contractors were con- 
fronted with bankruptcy and work was 
immediately stopped on some high- 
ways which in two or three weeks 
would have been finished. 

Long stretches of road were ren- 
dered unusable because small sections 
were left uncompleted. The mechan- 
isms needed for necessary highway 
construction were therefore seriously 
crippled, much of which could have 
been prevented had a few weeks' notice 
of the forthcoming order been dis- 
seminated. 

France has already been saved by 
her use of roads. Great Britain and 
France both have considered their 
highways fundamental to war succcess, 
while America, amply forewarned, has 
failed to plan and has crippled road 
construction and maintenance. 

In some minds perhaps, the rail- 
roads represent the only worth-while 
transportation mechanism, but ade- 
quate planning would minimize such 
serious misjudgment. 



As a result of neglect of planning 
and organization the year 1917 ends 
with freight conditions as indicated 
by the following newspaper items: 

The Evening Post (N. Y.) states 
that on December 14th, according to 
freight agents and lighterage men, 
there were more than 200,000 carloads 
of freight at a standstill within a 
radius of 300 miles of New York. 
This is about 9% of total number of 
cars in the United States, estimated 
at 2,300,000. 

From the Washington Post of 
December 29, 1917. 

Effects of 
Railroad Congestion 

"How intimate and vital is the rela- 
tionship of the battle front in 
France with the transportation 
system in the interior of the United 
States is shown by the situation 
now existing in the port of New 
York. Surely the American pub- 
lic has not forgotten how the con- 
fidence of the entente powers was 
shaken when the German submar- 
ine campaign reached its high- 
water mark last spring. In one 
month England lost 560,000 gross 
tons of shipping. The situation 
was considered so serious that the 
British premier said that victory 
depended upon one thing — ships, 
ships, and again ships. How vitally 
important, therefore, must we con- 
sider the tying up of 1,000,000 
gross tons of shipping in New York 
harbor alone. It is reported that 
that amount of shipping is held 
in New York harbor today because 
of the one fact that the railroads 
of the United States have been un- 
able to deliver enough coal to en- 
able them to leave. 

Of these ships twenty-two have 



[58; 



been held at New York from lack 
of coal since November 24 — more 
than a month. Four of these twen- 
ty-two ships are engaged solely in 
the transportation of ammunition 
to the French armies. Other of the 
ships are transport vessels in the 
service of the United States Ship- 
ping Board, directly depended 
upon to supply the fighting forces 
abroad, while practically all of them 
carry cargoes that exercise an im- 
portant influence upon the conduct 
of military operations against Ger- 
many. 

Thus it is clear that the coal 
shortage, in this respect, is serious- 
ly cutting down the strength of the 
armed forces opposing Germany, 
and for this, we are told, the trans- 
portation system is responsible. 
Ships arriving at New York have 
increased the congestion of the har- 
bor, which prevents vessels dock- 
ing and unloading or loading their 
cargoes, and which will delay 
steamers even after the coal ar- 
rives. 

The entire war machine is like 
a row of dominoes which a child has 
set up on end. As soon as one 
piece falls, the whole line tumbles 
down. It is only by keeping a con- 
stant watch over every part of the 
war machine and by forcing ab- 
solute coordination between all 
parts that the machine can be kept 
running and the constant flow of 
military power to the battle front 
maintained. If the transportation 
of coal to New York is blocked, the 
ships in harbor are tied up. That 
in turn causes congestion of harbor 
facilities and throws out of gear 
the harbor arrangements in France. 
Cargoes reach French ports spas- 
modically, at one period too few, 
and then too many. That, in .turn, 
places an uneven burden upon the 



strategic railways in France, so 
that they are alternately congested 
and idle. The arrival of supplies at 
the front is thrown off schedule, 
and thus the troops are unable to 
exert their full strength against 
the enemy at the opportune mo- 
ment. 

Unless this intimate and vital 
relationship between cause and ef- 
fect is kept in mind, we are apt to 
regard the action of the govern- 
ment in taking over the railroads 
as being of importance only for the 
solution of a few domestic trans- 
portation problems. As a matter 
of fact, it is very easy to trace the 
effect of the railway congestion 
straight to the fighting front. When 
Secretary McAdoo speaks of the. 
vital importance of railroad con- 
trol and of the necessity of his 
having the cooperation of every 
American citizen to assist him in 
his new task, he has in mind the 
welfare of the boys in France as 
well as the comfort of citizens at 
home." 

Some form of government control 
of railroads has appeared for several 
months to unbiased thinkers as in- 
evitable. During that precious time 
what plans has Washington (either 
responsible government or railroad 
officials) prepared in advance so that 
speedy comprehensive orders could be 
issued by the Railroad Director im- 
mediately he ivas in charge? Events 
are again giving a disappointing an- 
swer. 

Newspapers are now frequently 
quoting opinions of prominent rail- 
road men to the effect that the advan- 
tages of railroad coordination under 
unified government control will be so 
great that the public will never toler- 
ate reversion to the prior conditions 
which existed before Mr. McAdoo was 



[59] 



made Railroad Director. Strangely 
enough some of these very railroad 
leaders a few days ago were demand- 
ing further trial of a coordinated 
competitive system, represented by the 
Railroad War Board. Why did not 
our transportation chiefs long ago 
point out to the country what was 
needed to achieve a real national 
transportation system? Instead they 
filled the press with tales of the 
achievements of the old system which 
distracted the attention of the public 
from the real need. Much of our pres- 
ent suffering and war inefficiency 
could have been avoided by such 
frank courage on their part. As it 
is, we must, in spite of their splendid 
efforts, hold them responsible for part 
of our present disaster, for it is noth- 
ing less. 

The following article from the New 
York Evening Mail of December 29, 
1917, illustrates the difficulty expe- 
rienced by "System" men in freeing 
themselves from the habits of mind 
of which their business associations 
make them victims. 

"President Rea, of the Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad, has entered a pro- 
test against an editorial of The 
Evening Mail which incidentally 
criticised that lack of foresight in 
our public regulating bodies which 
allowed the Pennsylvania to erect 
a New York passenger terminal ex- 
cept in cooperation with the other 
Jersey roads. The president of the 
Pennsylvania Railroad, especially 
this president, deserves a fair an- 
swer to the objections he raises. 

On November 6, 1917, The Mail 
published an editorial of which the 
keynote was this : 

In the port of New York is illustrated, 
better than anywhere else in the United 
States, the waste and inefficiency of the 
competitive system in industry and trans- 
portation. 



We pointed out the lack of co- 
ordination in the freight handling 
facilities of New York harbor. We 
instanced the useless duplication of 
lighterage services in the harbor, a 
separate lighterage service being 
maintained by each railroad. The 
result is that barges that carry 
from 50 to 300 tons each are to be 
found carrying single carloads of 
freight of 15 to 20 tons between 
the railroad terminals and the 
ships. 

We advocated pooling of the 
lighterage equipment of the rail- 
roads and, still further than that, 
the pooling and joint use of all the 
railroad terminals on the Jersey 
side. 

The New York freight shipping dis- 
trict should be considered as one great 
terminal, to be operated jointly for the 
account of the roads which serve us. The 
charges and the profits of this terminal 
service could be distributed in proportion 
to the amount of freight which each road 
contributed. 

To this portion of the editorial 

no dissenting voice has been raised. 

But obviously it is as wasteful to 

have unnecessary duplication of 

passenger as of freight facilities. 

Therefore we said: 

In great centers like New York land 
is too valuable, space too precious, to 
allow this senseless duplication of termi- 
nal installations and terminal operations. 
We cannot have it. The great Pennsyl- 
vania terminal at Thirty-fourth street is 
a standing monument to the inefficiency 
and waste of our system. It was built 
hy the Pennsylvania Railroad alone, and 
has been a white elephant upon that rail- 
road's hands. Not for years will its 
handling capacity be fully utilized. In 
the meantime the other Jersey roads stop 
across the river from us and ferry their 
passengers to and fro. Ten years from 
now men will look back with amazement 
at a government which allowed the Penn- 
sylvania alone to build that railroad ter- 
minal. 

To this illustration President 
Rea, of the Pennsylvania, took ex- 
ception.. He addressed an open 



[60] 



letter to the editor of The Evening 
Mail and sent the letter also to the 
other papers. He said: 

Contrary to that opinion, the Pennsyl- 
vania station, instead of being a monu- 
ment to inefficiency and waste and a white 
elephant, is a monument to foresight and 
the necessities of New York City and the 
whole country with which it does business, 
and more especially so for the Pennsyl- 
vania system, whose passenger revenues 
are about 20% greater than the next 
largest railroad system of the country. 

We never said or intimated that 
the Pennsylvania Terminal is a 
standing monument to the ineffi- 
ciency and waste of the Pennsyl- 
vania. Quite the contrary. It is 
such a monument to our system of 
dealing with the railroads. By say- 
ing that the Pennsylvania Terminal 
is a "white elephant" on the rail- 
road's hands, we meant that the 
additional fixed charges which it 
imposed upon the Pennsylvania 
system were such as to wipe out a 
large part of the great financial 
margin with which the Pennsyl- 
vania was blessed before that ter- 
minal was undertaken. Mr. Rea 
does not deny our assertion that 
"not for years will its handling 
capacity be completely utilized." 
He says that it was built for the 
future, the future of the Pennsyl- 
vania : 

What would the public say of a man- 
agement with an actively expanding busi- 
ness which built for the present only? 
That station is built for the present and 
for the years to come, and is go adapted 
as to handle the increasing traffic of the 
Pennsylvania and its Long Island rail- 
roads and also such traffic as the New 
Haven will put into it and through it; 
if justified, more tunnels may be built, 
the station and yard facilities being ade- 
quate therefor. 

Why if there is so much hand- 
ling capacity of this terminal, and 
if its handling capacity can be so 
easily increased, why not let the 
other Jersey railroads now make ap- 



propriate connections with the Penn- 
sylvania's tunnel line and run their 
through trains into the terminal? 
That seems to be the only chance 
they will ever have to land passen- 
gers directly in New York. Mr. 
Rea says: 

The building of this great work would, 
by reason of its cost be prohibitive. 

If the building of this work 
would be prohibitive, the building 
of a similar work for the Jersey 
railroads, individually or jointly, 
would be similarly prohibitive. 

But Mr. Rea implies that it would 
be impossible to accommodate the 
passenger traffic of all the Jersey 
roads in one station. 

Let me express the opinion here that a 
union station could not be built in that 
huge city (New York) that could con- 
veniently accommodate all the rail traffic. 
If attempted, the cost, and the congestion 
around it, and upon the approach streets, 
would make its useful operation imprac- 
ticable. 

That would be quite true if all 
the huge suburban passenger busi- 
ness of all the Jersey roads were 
poured through one funnel, no mat- 
ter how large. But the other Jersey 
roads would not by any chance use 
that station for the larger part of 
their suburban business. The 
Pennsylvania does not so use it to- 
day. Mr. Rea says: 

The station was constructed for the 
future and primarily for the long-distance 
passenger travel to and from New York, 
New England, the southern and western 
states, the local suburban traffic to New 
Jersey being accommodated through the 
joint service so successfully inaugurated 
between Newark and New York via the 
Hudson tunnels, which is handling about 
200% more passengers than in its first 
year of operation. 

The other Jersey roads would 
continue to handle most of their 
local and suburban traffic to New 
Jersey exactly as they handle it to- 
day; by ferry service or use of the 



[61] 



Hudson tunnels. That traffic orig- 
inates in lower New York. Down- 
town suburban travelers on the 
Jersey Central or the Erie would 
not ride on the Seventh avenue sub- 
way up to Thirty-fourth street in 
order to get a train — no more than 
will the Pennsylvania commuters 
today. The addition to the present 
passenger business at the Pennsyl- 
vania station would be the addition 
of the through trains of the other 
Jersey roads carrying long-distance 
passenger travel to and from New 
York — just the sort of business 
that the Pennsylvania is carrying 
today. 

Ah, the Pennsylvania would say, 
that would let the other railroads 
in upon us to share in the competi- 
tive business south and west, of 
which we now have the larger por- 
tion because of our preferred ter- 
minal location. All right, go and 
pool your competitive passenger 
business. We are about ready to 
allow that. Divide the total of your 
joint revenues on competitive busi- 
ness according to percentages that 
represent your respective portions 
today. Then how would the Penn- 
sylvania suffer? The public gain 
would be obvious. Long-distance 
travelers to local points on the Le- 
high Valley, the West Shore, the 
Lackawanna, the Erie, the Jersey 
Central, the Reading, Baltimore 
and Ohio — all these people would 
have an infinitely more convenient 
access to the trains they must take, 
if these through trains started at 
the Thirty-fourth street terminal. 
Obviously the Jersey roads should 
bear their proper proportion of 
the fixed charges of such a joint 
terminal. Their contributions 
would be a financial relief to the 
Pennsylvania. 

[62] 



All honor to the enterprise and 
genius of the Pennsylvania's engi- 
neers who conceived and built that 
terminal. All respect to the man 
that now heads the Pennsylvania 
Railroad system. It is to broad, 
public-spirited men like him that 
the thinking public looks, in these 
days, to hasten those adjustments, 
to eliminate those competitive 
wastes which, if uneradicated, will 
feed the demagogy that will drive 
us into government ownership of 
the rail lines. Under any system 
of pooling facilities the great, 
strong roads like the Pennsylvania, 
which have more cars, more locomo- 
tives, better terminal facilities — 
these roads, by contributing what 
they have into the joint pool, must 
inevitably make sacrifices. We 
want to allow such a pooling of 
revenue that there will be partial 
compensation for these sacrifices. 
But there can never be complete 
compensation. The growing future 
advantages which the preferred ter- 
minal facilities promised to the big 
roads will never be realized. Rail- 
roads like the Pennsylvania, we 
hope, are among the chief of those 
property interests which will fore- 
go something of the letter of their 
legal rights in order to preserve 
the spirit of the institution of 
private property for the future. 
The alternative to such concessions 
is government ownership and 
socialism. 

This government in itself, in the 
last analysis, is responsible for the 
wasteful competition which the 
railroads have pursued with each 
other. Mr. Rea says truly: 

As to co-operation, notwithstanding our 
railroads have in the past been reared 
on competition, and for most of the time 
unreasonable competition, and that they 
have been fairly compelled by state and 
federal laws to compete, if such compul- 



sion be possible, they are today in times 
of stress co-operating to a degree never 
dreamed of and second to no other indus- 
try, and serving their government nobly. 

* v * # * 

Suppose the railroad had undertaken 
previous to the war to do what is pro- 
posed as a war measure for the War Port 
Board, i. e., pool the lighterage facilities, 
and, with its local freight facilities and 
other things, how far would they have 
gotten under existing law, federal and 
state? There is only one answer — such a 
combination would have been condemned 
and most of its officers would have been 
in jail for violation of the law. 

No one can gainsay that. But 
ivhat confronts is a present situa- 
tion, not a past wrong. The ques- 
tion now is: Can the railroads to- 
day, led by men like Mr. Rea — can 
the railroads, taught to think in 
terms of competition, quickly 
change their habits of thought and 
think in terms of cooperation? Can 
they hasten evolution and give us a 
truly national system of transpor- 
tation under private ownership, or 
must we instead have a revolution 
and see Mr. Rea and his like re- 
placed by the political railroad man- 
agers?" 

Other industries have indeed done 
no better than the railroads, but the 
quasi-public relationship does not so 



visibly exist. As each war industry, 
however, becomes perceptibly a war 
factor there too must the public insist 
upon broadminded wholly unselfish 
bending to the national need at what- 
ever cost. In Great Britain, five 
thousand plants are under govern- 
ment control. Individual plant pro- 
duction and fixed investment have 
been multiplied many fold. All have 
met the government demands without 
question as to final adjustment of 
rights of stockholder or corporation. 
The fundamental fairness of the En- 
glishman and his government appear 
to satisfy. Our Government has not, 
in the opinion of many business men, 
established its full claim to equal 
confidence, but as a war measure the 
public must enforce justice to avoid 
financial or industrial upheaval of 
dangerous proportions. 

Employers have been threatened 
with everything from confiscation to 
ruinous taxation, to regulation and 
restriction that have already produced 
frequent bankruptcy; so formulation 
of general principles relating to the 
treatment of business, in order to ef- 
fect that economic welfare upon which 
alone heavy taxation must be based, 
seems of great importance. 



[63; 



XI 

Fuel 



A dramatic illustration of the failure 
to obtain and use fundamentally im- 
portant facts relating to war needs was 
that furnished by the Fuel Adminis- 
trator, Dr. Garfield. It will be remem- 
bered that during the Fall, when the 
coal famine first became visible, the 
Fuel Administration insisted that there 
was no shortage of coal. After a hur- 
ried trip west, Dr. Garfield fortunately 
came to a realization that the demand 
for coal as a result of our war activi- 
ties had greatly increased and that con- 
clusions could no longer be drawn from 
pre-war figures alone. With an in- 
crease of demand between 10 and 20%, 
the production which he calculated 
would provide a surplus was discov- 
ered to threaten a deficiency of at least 
50 million tons. This is not intended 
as a criticism of Dr. Garfield. He 
entered upon his duties more handi- 
capped than perhaps any other of the 
war administrators. It was necessary 
to improvise his entire organization 
and almost immediately meet a situ- 
ation which had long been growing 
critical without any organized means 
for controlling it. 

For a long time to come, America 
and her allies are going to suffer for 
lack of preparation and the vision 
which even as late as last Winter 
could have saved innumerable delays 
and their resultant sacrifice. Several 
of these avoidable delays will be men- 
tioned elsewhere. 

The Fuel Administer began his du- 
ties by endeavoring to increase the out- 
put of the mines and to improve its 
distribution. No apparent attention 
was paid to conservation and preven- 
tion of waste in the use of the fuel 
already on hand and to be provided. 

[ 



The Patriotic Education Society last 
Summer called the attention of the 
leading American engineering socie- 
ties to this gap, suggesting that as 
their members were largely in their 
daily work concerned with fuel econo- 
mies it would seem as if those socie- 
ties logically should become an impor- 
tant factor in a nation-wide campaign 
for fuel economy. This suggestion 
was followed up by an investigation 
of the existing committees, bureaus 
and organizations that were at all in- 
terested or active in that field and it 
was discovered that every one was 
anxious for recognition of this prob- 
lem, realizing its importance and de- 
siring to cooperate. This condition 
was explained to the Fuel Administra- 
tion, the Council of National Defense, 
the United States Chamber of Com- 
merce, engineering societies, to the 
press; and for several months an in- 
vestigator of the Patriotic Education 
Society was constantly endeavoring to 
co-ordinate the activities leading to 
prevention of fuel waste. Finally the 
Fuel Administration took the matter 
actively in hand and various other 
agencies are now effectively cooperat- 
ing. 

Encourage the Stokers 

In Germany, stokers and firemen 
are held responsible for prevention 
of smoke, which means fuel waste. 
In this country the factory owner 
is held responsible, and the trade 
unions have not done as much as 
they could to assist him. It has, 
therefore, been suggested to the 
Fuel Administration that an ap- 
peal to the stationary and locomotive 
firemen and engineers of the country, 
64] 



accompanied by conferences, drawing 
public attention to the value of their 
patriotic assistance in this matter and 
in general a recognition which should 
appeal to the individual, emphasizing 
the importance of his personal contri- 
bution to the cause, would be of great 
value. An effort is being made at the 
present time to carry on such a cam- 
paign to stimulate the ship workers, 
but little has yet been done to stir the 
largest handlers of our coal supply. 

New England, our chief munitions 
producer, has been seriously handi- 
capped by inadequate supplies of fuel, 
this condition having been accentuated 
by the competitive and sometimes un- 
intelligent commandeering of tugs, 
steamers, and barges, which formerly 
delivered to New England three- 
fourths of its entire coal supply. The 
reduction of the water transportation 
facilities increased the burden of the 
already overloaded railroad system of 
New England and the Middle States. 
Why the Army, the Navy and the 
Shipping Board should all have had 
independent commandeering rights 
must be a mystery to anybody who 
knows the first principles of organ- 
ization. 

Is it not certain that adequate plan- 
ning or control by superior authority 
would have obviated the failure to use 
tug, barge and small vessel build- 
ing capacity of our shallow har- 
bors and rivers? This single fail- 
ure is now responsible for munition 
factories being closed or run part 
time, for unnecessary suffering from 
cold in New England and the Middle 



States, and worst of all, for criminal 
delays of deep-sea tonnage in our 
harbors because bunker coal cannot be 
obtained. When the fate of the world 
is hanging upon ship tonnage and we 
are feverishly expediting ship build- 
ing, think of vessels in service being 
idle for lack of a little simple fore- 
thought that would have required the 
Shipping Board or some other agency 
in spite of restricted powers to meet 
this situation. What has been done up 
to today to make amends for the 
delay? 

The scarcity of coal in Italy has 
driven her vigorously to develop her 
water powers, to burn wood in loco- 
motives, to use inferior grades of fuel, 
such as peat. Long ago the Patriotic 
Education Society suggested that our 
Federal Government investigate the 
development of power at the coal mine 
mouth and its transmission electri- 
cally to factory and city to relieve the 
railroads. Such power development at 
the mines could readily be accompan- 
ied by the production of coke, which 
could be used to furnish steam power 
or be used as coke in industry in case 
it were found advisable to produce the 
power locally through internal com- 
bustion engines. A little co-ordinated 
vision at Washington would have 
caused the consideration of such prob- 
lems months ago. Such central power 
plants would be great factors in pro- 
ducing toluol necessary for high ex- 
plosives and of which we today lack 
at least 50% of what we need, with 
no immediate hope of a quick increase 
of supply. 



[65] 



XII 



Imperfect Democracy vs. 
Perfected Autocracy 



Every business man knows that it 
takes years to develop an effective bus- 
iness organization. We are competing 
with a nation which has for decades 
developed its complex organization of 
experts trained to collect and use facts 
gathered from the corners of the 
earth. The suggestion to develop 
power at the coal mine mouth was re- 
ceived in some instances by the re- 
mark that the war would be ended 
before that could be done. Who knows 
when this war will end? Who today 
can tell how our resources are to be 
strained ? Who cannot say that defeat 
and invasion of our own country can 
be prevented only by utilizing to the 
utmost of human ability every re- 
source we possess? It is useless to 
criticise individuals even where indi- 
vidual fault is easily placed. America 
is the victim of our national compla- 
cency, the old belief that America com- 
pared with other nations had super- 
ability, super-organization powers. 

In this uncertain world are we safe 
in sharing unreservedly with Secre- 
tary Baker the feeling that he ex- 
pressed at Georgetown on June 5th?: 
"I delight in the fact that when we en- 
tered this war we were not, as our 
adversary, ready for it, anxious for 
it, prepared for it and inviting it. 
On the other hand, accustomed to 
peace, we were not ready." 

Germany — A Nation of 
Spoiled Children 

At the end of our Civil War, with 
a trained army of one million veterans, 
the strongest armed force in the world, 



we did not challenge our neighbors, 
we did not run amuck, but in ninety 
days most of those men were in their 
homes. Why should we today have 
faith in our ability to defend our 
ideals and yet so distrust our integrity 
of purpose as to fear military knowl- 
edge among our -people? Germany 
during the past century has fewer 
years of war to her discredit than have 
Great Britain, France or America. 

Those who have to do with spoiled 
children know that it is practically 
impossible to change them. The Ger- 
man military class produced a gener- 
ation of teachers, who, as children, 
were fed with distorted visions which 
the rest of the world would call im- 
moral. Those children grew up and 
taught the next generation until there 
has been organized in Germany an 
entire nation of morally spoiled child- 
ren. How can this war end until that 
national immoral sense is subdued or 
until it conquers the world? We may 
have an early peace and leave it to 
under perhaps still more desperate 
conditions; but surely we have no right 
to make any plans involving our na- 
tional safety save on the basis of a 
long and desperate struggle, involving 
our utmost in unselfishness, efficiency 
and resource. 

Secretary Baker, according to the 
Official Bulletin, issued by the Com- 
mittee on Public Information, of June 
21st, at a conference between cabinet 
officers and editors of trade publica- 
tions, said, "I am not asking you to 
forbear criticism . . . Make your 
criticism 'helpful and constructive. 

. . . Point out the way to do it 



[66 



right when you discover that it is be- 
ing done wrong, and do not spare us 
who are here charged with the respon- 
sibility, if, after you have pointed out 
the right way to do it we persist obsti- 
nately in continuing to do it the 
wrong way." Congress is now inves- 
tigating the War and other depart- 
ments in the spirit Secretary Baker 
indicates. The public are just begin- 
ning to realize that many things have 
not been done as well as the gravity of 
the situation required. The whole 
nation desires to look backward, not 
for the sake of mere criticism, but to 
learn the lessons that we yet have time 
to apply for our future safety. Many 
of these lessons point to lack of fore- 
planning, owing both to lack of vision 
and to lack of accurate and compre- 
hensive information upon which vision 
must build to be serviceable. 

Warnings Unheeded 
The Council of National Defense, 
from various directions, early received 
warning regarding the dangers in- 
volved in filling our Army and Navy 
with volunteers or drafted men with- 
out adequate provision for exemption 
to protect our essential industries. In 
spite of these warnings well over a 
million men were withdrawn from in- 
dustries before this lesson was heeded. 
The enormous personnel and floor 
space required to manage modern war 
were illustrated to the Council of Na- 
tional Defense by calling to their atten- 
tion that the Royal Flying Corps in 
Great Britain prior to the war occu- 
pied seven offices and two years later 
was using 375 rooms ; that the British 
Ministry of Munitions in London had 
commandeered a large hotel and in 
addition occupied temporary buildings 
in London and employed over 5,000 
people in London alone. 

When America entered the war, 
the Advisory Commission of the 



Council of National Defense, upon 
which depended much of the ex- 
pansion corresponding to that of the 
British Ministry of Munitions, oc- 
cupied one-half of one floor in one 
office building in Washington. As the 
Commission expanded under its war 
burden other offices were gradually 
added, but it was weeks later before 
Secretary Baker visited the building, 
saw the need and approved adequate 
plans to house the Commissioners 
and their staffs. Similar conditions ex- 
isted in every rapidly expanding de- 
partment last Spring. Early atten- 
tion was called to the inadequacy of 
Washington to house the army of vol- 
unteers and new workers the govern- 
ment would need. Today rents have 
trebled, hotels are booked weeks ahead, 
apartment houses are being command- 
eered by the government and occu- 
pants of years are being dispossessed. 
Upon private initiative has fallen 
much of the burden of meeting many 
of these war emergencies. 

Thousands of American profession- 
al and business men have gone to 
Washington full of patriotism offering 
their services without cost to the gov- 
ernment ; and many of them have gone 
home sorely disillusioned. No central 
information bureau where they could 
even inquire where their individual 
services might prove useful; no place 
even to find out where to locate specific 
individuals they might have had occa- 
sion to interview. There was no com- 
mittee or individual with adequate 
authority, unhampered by detail work, 
in a position to look ahead or to study 
the gaps and overlapping activities in 
the expanding organizations. That 
weakness continues until the present 
moment. To handle it adequately a 
Planning Chief or Committee respon- 
sible directly to the President would 
seem to be essential. Through such a 
mechanism condensed analyses of con- 



fer; 



ditions could be presented for execu- 
tive consideration and action. Weak- 
nesses within departments could be 
viewed from a national rather than 
from a departmental angle. 

The country must remember the 
conflicting arrangements carried out 
by Secretary Lane and Secretary 
Baker in connection with fixing the 
price of coal, indicating lack of co- 
ordination, plans and policies among 
cabinet officials. President Wilson 
told the Governors, when they visited 
the White House during their con- 
ference early in May, that he was 
spending a large part of his time 
co-ordinating his executives. With 
the burden of international problems 
and other grave responsibilities, how 
can the President be expected to give 
adequate attention to the business 
problem of "co-ordinating his execu- 
tives" ? // he had an organizing assis- 
tant, call him Secretary or give him 
no title, in ivhom he had confidence 
and who was supported by the author- 
ity of the President in carrying out 
investigations and obtaining informa- 
tion upon which plans for the present 
and future could be comprehensively 
based, some of the complaint which is 
yet rumored in Washington could be 
eliminated. One often hears it said 
that leading executives, whose prob- 
lems can be settled only by decision of 
the President, are frequently delayed 
days at a time in obtaining an audi- 
ence with him. Real co-ordination of 
executives in a comprehensive way 
would seem in these critical times to 
require daily contact and daily deci- 
sions. This is true for success in 
business, epecially when that business 
is of an aggressive, expanding charac- 
ter. 

No Matured Plans 

Many students of organization have 
long since come to the conclusion that 



the two weakest parts of our entire 
national war effort lie at the very 
top of our executive mechanism, — one 
right next to the President and the 
other just below his executive chiefs. 
If the story can ever be written, the 
unselfish patriotism of business men 
in trying to live up to the spirit of 
the national need without complaint, 
under conditions avoidably onerous, 
will excite general admiration. Many 
proclamations have been put into effect 
before underlying policies were either 
worked out or expressed, before ade- 
quate organization or mechanism or 
even plan had been created to carry 
them out. Export and import restric- 
tions, priority rulings, commandeering 
of transportation facilities, price reg- 
ulations are illustrations of these 
difficulties. 

When General Crozier recently ad- 
mitted before the Congressional inves- 
tigating committee that the only prep- 
aration of his department for war 
prior to our entry was the prepara- 
tion of a card index, it is indeed 
not surprising that our getting into 
war unprepared was very comprehen- 
sively carried out. It is perhaps the 
one thing that we have done thor- 
oughly. 

The original Naval Consulting 
Board, the Council of National De- 
fense and its Advisory Commission 
have all been useful educational fac- 
tors and as such have doubtless mini- 
mized mistakes and delays. 

It may be interesting to quote in re- 
view several bulletins of the Chamber 
of Commerce of the United States, all 
of which bear upon the subject of 
organization and coordination. 

Bulletin No. 22 of October 1st is a 
dignified expression that business 
America expects constructive leader- 
ship from its government: 



[68; 



The Duty the Government 
Owes Business in War 

"The duty Business owes the Govern- 
ment in War has been clearly- 
stated. Business must 'dedicate to 
the Nation every facility it has de- 
veloped and every financial resource 
it commands on such terms and un- 
der such circumstances as our Gov- 
ernment shall determine to be just.' 
Business owes the duty to submit 
unhesitatingly to such regulation 
and control by the Government as 
may be necessary to concentrate the 
industrial resources and energy of 
the country toward winning the 
war. 

The duty which the Government 
owes Business is equally clear. The 
Government owes Business the duty 
of wise and constructive leadership. 
The control over Business carries 
with it the responsibility that the 
control be exercised in a manner 
to produce the results desired 
and to impose no unnecessary hard- 
ship. 

When the Government says what 
business shall be done, what prices 
shall be charged, and how produc- 
tion shall be distributed, there is 
created a new system of production 
and distribution and there is 
brought to an end the old system 
understood by business men — i. e., 
the system of production and dis- 
tribution by price. The new sys- 
tem must be developed quickly to 
replace the system no longer in ef- 
fect and this new system must be 
made clear to business men so that 
they may know each day how to 
meet the problems of business. 

What Business may do to help 
win the War is being determined by 
the Government. Concentration of 
industrial energy and resource will 



come about to the full extent only 
if the Government affords the nec- 
essary leadership. 

In meeting this great responsi- 
bility the Government can command 
the full help and assistance of Bus- 
iness. Side by side the problem may 
be worked out in mutual cooperation. 
With the full power to compel any 
business man to put aside all selfish 
desire, the Government may forget 
the controversies of the past and 
have the benefit of all helpful knowl- 
edge and experience of Business. 
The struggle of the Nation brings 
about a common purpose and in cre- 
ating the conditions under which 
business is to be done during the 
War, the Government can use with- 
out reservation the services of men 
who know business, its infinite 
ramifications, its delicate sensitive- 
ness. 

Business says to the Government 
"your buying of vast quantities of 
war supplies, your control of prices 
and distribution, create a new world 
for business. Not a moment is to 
be lost in clearing up the situation 
by giving us full knowledge of the 
new system of production and dis- 
tribution upon which our very bus- 
iness life depends." 

Business suggests to the Govern- 
ment as a means to clear up the sit- 
uation that the purchasing of war 
supplies be under one control and 
that the fixing of the prices and 
distribution be made quickly and 
without hesitation and according to 
declared methods and principles. 
Furthermore, Business suggests 
that each industry form a commit- 
tee to speak to the Government for 
that industry, so that when the Gov- 
ernment desires to act those affected 
will be heard, and after action mis- 
takes may be promptly corrected. 
In this manner full cooperation 



[69; 



between the Government and Busi- 
ness can be quickly brought about. 
These are merely suggestions. 
The duty of leadership is upon the 
Government." 

War Bulletin No. 27 issued October 
30th tactfully hints at disappointment 
over the government's methods of 
price control and distribution and 
makes helpful suggestions for im- 
provement : 

Price Control and 
Distribution 

"The recommendations of business men 
through the Chamber of Commerce 
of the United States that the gov- 
ernment during the war control 
prices, production and distribution 
under certain circumstances, make 
it desirable to consider the nature 
and extent of what has already 
been done by the government in 
this direction. 

Purposes of Control 

Control of prices by the govern- 
ment may be for the following pur- 
poses : 

1. To enable the goverment or the pub- 
lie, or both, to purchase at prices 
below those established by market 
conditions ; 

2. To substitute for the ordinary 
method of distribution by price a 
method of distribution of product 
on a basis of the country's require- 
ments in connection with the prose- 
cution of the war; 

3. To prevent the making of large prof- 
its out of the war and thereby, 
among other things, eliminate a 
cause of great discontent on the part 
of labor. 

Prices Dealt With 

Our government has fixed prices 
on copper, steel, coal, coke and pig- 
iron. In these cases, the prices to 
the public and to the Allies have 
been the same as that to our gov- 



ernment, and the prices have been 
substantially below those prevailing 
in the market at the time. There- 
fore, the control of these prices by 
the government has accomplished 
the first of the three purposes in- 
dicated above. 

Distribution 

There has not, however, been es- 
tablished thus far in any case a 
method of distribution in connection 
with the control of prices. Priority 
on specific orders has been granted, 
but no general effort has been made 
to distribute production among 
those whose requirements are most 
urgent, considered from the stand- 
point of national defense. In fact, 
the activity of the Priority Commit- 
tee of the War Industries Board has 
thus far been confined almost en- 
tirely to the granting of priority on 
government orders. No general 
rules of distribution have been laid 
down. No announcement has been 
made of a classification of essential 
and non-essential industries. Prior- 
ity decisions are still made on the 
merit of the particular application 
and not on the thoroughgoing con- 
sideration of the general require- 
ments of industry. This makes it 
quite evident that, up to the present 
time, the government has not at- 
tempted to accomplish purpose num- 
ber two of the above classification. 

Level of Prices 

In the next place, wherever prices 
have been fixed by the government 
consideration has been given to the 
necessity of stimulating production 
and prices have been established at 
a sufficiently high level to accom- 
plish this purpose. This has, of 
course, produced high prices and 
has in a large number of cases re- 
sulted in large profits — far beyond 



[70] 



those earned in normal times. The 
fixing of prices has not been accom- 
panied by an arrangement under 
which excess earnings are paid into 
the public treasury — some such ar- 
rangement as that which has been 
adopted in England in connection 
with the "controlled" plants, as set 
forth in War Bulletin No. 14. In 
removing the discontent of labor at 
high war profits, taxation, because 
of its remote application, is unsat- 
isfactory, even when directed at war 
profits, and such a general taxation 
measure as that recently passed by 
Congress is less effective. 

Elements in Situation 

Therefore, as large profits are be- 
ing made even in industries where 
the government has fixed prices, the 
govenment has not yet been able to 
enter upon the accomplishment of 
the third of the purposes above set 
forth. 

It is not unnatural that the gov- 
ernment should proceed slowly and 
hesitatingly with such unprece- 
dented action as the control of prices 
and distribution. The very magni- 
tude of the undertaking restrains 
the vigor and energy which would 
characterize the effort to solve a less 
difficult problem. In any event, 
however, success is only relative 
and in the early stages may be lost 
sight of entirely because of unavoid- 
able confusion. 

This makes it all the more im- 
portant to distinguish between 
the results of partial effort which 
does not even endeavor to secure full 
results and those of thoroughgoing, 
well-developed effort. When the 
government has not endeavored to 
establish a new method of distribu- 
tion to take the place of distribu- 
tion by price even in the instances 



where the government has con- 
trolled prices and where direct ef- 
fort is not made to prevent the 
earning of large profits where prices 
have been fixed, it is not to be ex- 
pected that production will be dis- 
tributed on the best basis for the 
national defense or that discontent 
on the part of labor will be avoided. 

Difficulties to Be Avoided 

In some respects the first at- 
tempts of the government at price 
control have been such that most 
business men will regard disappoint- 
ment or failure as inevitable. To 
business men any fixing of prices to 
a vast multitude of users is an un- 
dertaking of almost insurmountable 
difficulty and absolutely hopeless if 
not accompanied by some method of 
distribution. 

Where no mechanism is developed 
to take the place of distribution by 
price, and nevertheless an effort is 
made to control retail prices of a 
product in urgent demand, there 
will be of necessity wholesale at- 
tempts at evasion. The man whose 
house is cold endeavors to induce a 
dealer to secure coal for him by 
making gifts (often in the form 
of wagers) or by purchasing arti- 
cles of no value. Similar conditions 
have produced the same experience 
for many hundreds of years. 

General Basis for Prices 

There has not been developed as 
yet a clear policy with regard to 
securing the assistance of business 
men in connection with the control 
of prices. In some cases the gov- 
ernment has called upon those in- 
terested in a business to participate 
in the actual fixing of the prices. 
This has resulted in a fixing of 
prices by negotiation — which is 



[71 



clearly harmful. In the judgment 
of the undersigned Committee, men 
elected by an industry to represent 
it should be called upon by the gov- 
ernment for full information which 
would be helpful in fixing prices, 
but the actual determination of the 
price should be a semi-judicial 
function. 

This means that wherever prices 
are determined by the government 
it is essential that such prices 
should be arrived at according to 
some general plan and upon a defi- 
nitely declared basis. Such general 
principles should be followed so far 
as possible wherever the govern- 
ment acts to control prices and 
would serve as a yardstick or 
standard between different indus- 
tries. 

In other cases the government has 
not consulted business men but has 
conducted independent investiga- 
tions and announced prices without 
giving any information as to the 
basis on which such prices were 
reached. This necessarily creates 
antagonism on the part of business 
men who are unaccustomed to auto- 
cratic control, and prevents the co- 
operative response which might be 
expected from business men if they 
had a clear understanding of what 
was being done. 

Actual Conditions 

Knowledge of actual conditions 
existing in business in its intricate 
ramifications can be acquired only 
by years of intimate contact. In 
the judgment of business men it is 
essential to success in government 
control of prices and distribution to 
establish a basis upon which this 
knowledge and information of bus- 
iness men can be at the service of 
the government under such circum- 

[72 



stances as not to be influenced by 
selfishness or the need of self-pro- 
tection. 

Success in price control is to be 
expected only where made in con- 
nection with distribution and when 
the attempt is made as near as pos- 
sible to the source of supply; also 
when advantage is taken of such 
helpful aids as the control of rail- 
way transportation; and further- 
more when the government has the 
assistance of business men of knowl- 
edge and experience, furnished on 
a disinterested basis and under such 
circumstances as to bring about co- 
operation in the industries which 
such men represent." 

Evidently the great industries 
have not been utilized in such a way 
as to furnish the greatest assistance 
to the government with the minimum 
of disturbance to the industry. This 
condition is known to most business 
men who have been in touch with con- 
ditions in Washington and again il- 
lustrates the importance of carefully 
planned policies based upon the most 
expert information and assistance ob- 
tainable, applied under conditions free 
from the objections and criticisms 
which have been possible owing to 
some of the relations existing between 
government and producer. 

An Englishman in this country to 
purchase supplies for his government 
stated that he was officially told to see 
a certain individual in order to pur- 
chase a certain commodity, this indi- 
vidual being described as the govern- 
ment representative. This particular 
individual was the head of a company 
which had a virtual monopoly of that 
commodity and therefore was both 
monopolistic seller of that commodity 
and United States government repre- 
sentative at the time he was negoti- 
ating with this English official pur- 



chasing agent. "In no other country 
in the world," remarked the English- 
man, "would such an anomalous con- 
dition be permitted to exist." 

Apply Important Principles 

As great confusion seems likely to 
occur in connection with our priority 
problem for a long time to come, we 
venture to quote in full War Bulletin 
No. 10 of the Chamber of Commerce 
of the United States issued August 
3rd, 1917: 

Priority in England 

"While Judge Lovett and the War In- 
dustries Board are determining 
what is to be done in this country 
regarding priority, it may be well 
to present to business men a state- 
ment of what has been done in En- 
gland toward solving this problem 
as it exists there. 

British Priority Department 

The Priority Department is un- 
der the Ministry of Munitions of 
War and has been gradually devel- 
oped from an informal committee 
that was constituted in September, 
1915, over one year after the war 
started. Before that time questions 
of priority were determined, if at 
all, by conference between the inter- 
ested government departments. In 
this connection it may be well to re- 
call that the Ministry of Munitions 
of War was not established until the 
Act of June 9th, 1915, was passed. 

Representative Character 

When the Priority Committee 
was organized it consisted of repre- 
sentatives of a few of the depart- 
ments of the Ministry of Munitions 
of War. From time to time the 
membership has been increased un- 



til it now numbers at least a score 
who represent, not only the impor- 
tant departments of the Ministry — 
such as guns, small arms, gun am- 
munition, small arms ammunition, 
machine tools, raw materials, labor 
supply, etc. — but also the Admi- 
ralty, the railway department, India 
Office, War Office, contract depart- 
ment, Post Office, the Office of 
Works and lastly — of much impor- 
tance — the Board of Trade. The 
Board of Trade is expected to rep- 
resent the interest of private in- 
dustry. The broad principle has 
been followed of having represented 
on the committee every interest 
which should be considered in de- 
termining questions of priority. 

Procedure 

The committee meets every day 
and no priority can be granted un- 
less all present agree. One objec- 
tion rejects an application — but 
such decision is not final. The rep- 
resentative of the interested depart- 
ment may withdraw the application 
and refer the matter through the 
chief of his department to some one 
representing the Minister of Muni- 
tions, who is the final authority — 
for example, to the assistant secre- 
tary of the Ministry. It is stated 
that in practice the number of cases 
in which the action of the commit- 
tee has not been accepted as final 
has been remarkably few. 

Origin of Cases 

At the outset and for five or six 
months the Priority Committee 
acted only on cases presented to it 
by the government departments or 
by manufacturers. It gradually be- 
came clear that these cases repre- 
sented only a fraction of what the 
committee could do with advantage. 



[73] 



Therefore in March, 1916, there 
was issued an order which became 
famous in the English industrial 
world as "Circular L 33." This 
created the semi-automatic machin- 
ery under which a manufacturer 
instructed as to priority by the com- 
mittee could himself issue certifi- 
cates to bring about similar prior- 
ity on materials or sub-contracts 
for his contract. 

Classification of Work 

"Circular L 33" was revised on 
March 8th of this year and now by 
order of the Minister of Munitions 
all persons engaged in certain indus- 
tries have their work divided into 
three classes — A, B and C. A is 
war work, B other work of national 
importance, and C is all work not 
comprised in A or B. 

Class A comprises work or ma- 
terial wholly required as a compo- 
nent part of any work or goods to be 
carried out or supplied under : 

(A) A government war contract which 
signifies : 

1. Any contract placed by the Ad- 
miralty, the War Office, or the 

Minister of Munitions. 

2. Any contract for naval or military 
equipment placed by an allied 
government by or with the consent 
in writing of the Admiralty, the 
War Office, or the Minister of 
Munitions. 

( B ) Certified war work which signifies : 

1. Work on a contract or order which 
the Admiralty, the War Office, or 
the Minister of Munitions has 
certified in writing to be war or 
munition work. 

2. Work which the Minister of Muni- 
tions has directed to be treated 
on an equality with war work. 

(C) Merchant shipping work certified 
in writing by the Board of Trade 
to be munitions work. 

War Contracts 

The Priority Committee grants 
priority in Class A as follows : 



1. Most urgent war work. 

2. Very urgent war work. 

3. Urgent war work and 
4. War work. 

In addition there is an emergency 
classification which takes prece- 
dence over all. The following quo- 
tations indicate the nature of the. 
instructions issued: 

"The orders or contracts given below 
are such urgent war work that they should 
take precedence of all other work you 
have on hand, and all your available and 
applicable resources of labor and machin- 
ery should be concentrated on completing 
them. This special emergency instruction 
places the orders or contracts in front of 
all ordinary grades 1, 2, 3, 4 in Class A 
War Work." 

"Priority Instruction 2 — The orders or 
contracts given below are Veiy Urgent 
War Work and should rank on an equality 
with other Very Urgent War Work which 
you have on hand; and all available and 
applicable labor and machinery not en- 
gaged on other equally urgent war work 
should be employed on completing them." 

Certified War Work 
In connection with Class B. prior- 
ity is granted in Class 5, but only 
as regards Class B or C work. This 
makes two groups under B, i. e., In- 
struction 5 and other Class B. 

Delegated Authority 
Ordinarily under Class C no cer- 
tificates are issued, as this work 
follows A and B, but in some cases 
preference is noted in Class C which 
gives rise to the following illumi- 
nating instruction : 

"Priority Instruction 6 — On the infor- 
mation at present available, the orders or 
contracts given below are not regarded 
as war work; or as necessary for the 
efficient conduct of the war, but these 
orders or contracts may be undertaken 
subj ect to the following conditions : — first, 
that the work thereon shall not be permit- 
ted to delay or interfere, directly or indi- 
rectly, with any war work or be taken as a 
sufficient reason for not understanding any 
future orders for war work direct or 
indirect which may be offered you; second, 
the present permission shall not be relied 
on as an objection to labor being removed 
from your works should the necessity of 



[74] 



doing so arise. Orders or contracts under 
Priority Instruction 6 should be executed 
in priority to other orders in Class C." 

Where priority is granted to any manu- 
facturer he automatically has authority to 
issue certificates to all supplying him with 
materials for the work in question which 
grant the same priority on such materials. 

The Priority Committee closely 
supervises the use of this authority 
and reverses a priority certificate 
granted by the manufacturer when- 
ever the action of the manufacturer 
appears to the Priority Committee 
not to be justified. Oh an elaborate 
form the Committee secures infor- 
mation from a manufacturer issu- 
ing certificates as to the grounds 
on which certificates were issued. 

Industries Affected 

The industries affected by the 
Priority Committee are as follows: 

All trades and manufacturers in or ol 
metals, machinery, agricultural imple- 
ments and vehicles. 
The repairing of machinery or plant for 

use in Industry. 
Woodworking. 
Pottery and Glass Trades. 
Buildings and Works of Construction. 
Textile Trades and Manufacture. 
Linoleum, Oilcloth and Table Baize Man- 
ufacture. 
Rope, Twine and Line Trades and Manu- 
facture. 
Coal Tar Products, Manufacture of. 
Dyestuffs, Manufacture of. 
Other Chemical Products, Manufacture 

of. 
Lubricating Oils, and other Lubricants, 

Manufacture of. 
Oil Seed Crushing. 
Soap and Candles, Manufacture of. 
Fertilizers, Manufacture of. 
Paints, Colors and Varnishes, Manufac- 
ture of. 
Baskets and Wicker Work, Manufacture 

of. 
Letterpresses and Lithographic Printing. 
Papermaking. 

Leather Trades and Manufacture. 
Boot, Shoe and Clog Manufacture. 
Coke, Manufacture of. 
Rubber Trades and Manufacture. 
Waterproofing of Fabrics of Paper. 
Electricity, Gas andWater Services. 
Stone, Marble, Granite, and Slate Quarry- 
ing, Cutting and Polishing. 
Bookbinding. 



Orders Not Compulsory 

The manufacturer is not com- 
pelled to accept work from the gov- 
ernment, and when a manufacturer 
accompanies an order to another 
manufacturer, with a certicate 
which would entitle this order, if 
accepted, to priority, the manufac- 
turer to whom the order is tendered 
need not accept the order unless he 
desires to sell. There is, however, 
strong indirect pressure to accept 
priority orders, because a priority 
order gives assurance that steel and 
other scarce raw materials may be 
secured, that transportation will be 
afforded, and also that a plant en- 
gaged upon priority work will have 
an adequate supply of labor. 

Orders Regarding Materials 

The Priority Committee issues 
orders from time to time that no 
scarce material shall be used except 
on Class A work or Class A and B 
work. For example, an order has 
been issued that copper, whether 
wrought or unwrought, should be 
used only for work on Class A or 
B, and at one time an order was 
issued that spelter should not be 
used except in Class A work, or for 
the purpose of necessary repairs or 
renewals involving the use of not 
exceeding 1 cwt. of spelter. 

Reports of Supplies 

The steel controller receives 
weekly reports from rolling mills 
giving the schedule of rollings, ac- 
tual rollings, the shipments, and of 
great importance, a statement of 
reasons for retarded output. The 
reports require the name of each 
customer and of the priority class 
in which the order is entered. The 
Priority Committee thus has actual 
control over all work done in the 



[75] 



steel business. Reports are re- 
quired of all stocks in Great Britain 
of certain listed scarce material, 
and from time to time the Minister 
of Munitions takes possession of 
all stocks of certain character. This 
has been done with regard to brass, 
brass scrap, copper and copper ore, 
etc. 

Suggestions to Manufacturers 

The Priority branch of the Min- 
istry of Munitions of War issues 
such notices as : 

"Please note that no corrugated sheeting 
is available for general or export pur- 
poses. It can only be obtained for direct 
war work . It is, therefore, only a waste 
of time to apply for permission for other 
purposes. Steel, Brass and Copper also 
can be supplied only for war work, or 
for maintaining essential National Indus- 
tries." 

From time to time the Priority 
branch requests of the manufac- 
turer a list of all of his orders, giv- 
ing customer's name, and full par- 
ticulars, including what proportion 
of the work remains to be done. As 
indicating the existing attitude to- 
ward Class C work, it is stated 
Class C contracts need not be given 
in detail, but their number and total 
value should be stated. 

The following request is of inter- 
est: "In order that it may be pos- 
sible to ascertain roughly whether 
you have so many orders in hand in 
Class A that you are not able to 
make progress with orders of Class 
B or C, you are requested to indicate 
approximately the number of orders 
on j'-our books not begun or not yet 
completed but to give an indication 
in some other form most convenient 
to you, which would render it pos- 
sible to form an estimate of your 
ability, with the labor, plant and 
the materials available, to execute 
at the present time B and C classes." 



Coal Distribution 

The Comptroller of Coal Mines of 
the Board of Trade has recently is- 
sued an order that, effective at 6 
P. M. September 8th, 1917, all coal 
contracts are to be abrogated. 
Thereafter, each coal-producing 
district may sell coal only for deliv- 
ery in certain stipulated areas. It 
is stated that this is done : 

1. "That consumption of coal should 
take place as near the producing 
point as possible." 

2. "That in view of the supply facilities 
afforded by the main trunk lines, the 
movements of traffic should follow 
these routes wherever possible." 

3. "That the movement of coal should, 
as far as possible, be in well defined 
directions: viz.: north to south, north 
to southwest, north to southeast, east 
to west." 

4. "That an area producing less coal 
than suffices for its own need should 
not send any portion of its coal to 
other areas. That an area producing 
more coal than it requires for the 
consumption within the area itself, 
should distribute the balance to 
adjacent or convenient areas." 

The Comptroller of Coal Mines 
estimates that this arangement will 
effect a saving of 700,000,000 ton- 
miles in the transportation of coal 
by the railways. 

General Purposes of Priority 

The above illustrations indicate 
that the Priority branch of the Min- 
istry of Munitions has for its func- 
tions to bring about harmonious 
action between the conflicting de- 
mands of the different departments 
of the Ministry of Munitions, of the 
Admiralty, the War Office and other 
government offices, the railroads, 
the mines and other quasi-public 
service and approved industry. 

All these different public inter- 
ests are in more or less active com- 
petition among themselves for their 
share of raw material, manufactur- 
ing capacity, and labor of the coun- 



r/76] 



try. The Priority Committee has 
been created in recognition of the 
fact that the decision between these 
several interests cannot be left in 
war-time to the uncontrolled opera- 
tion of prices. 

The work of the Priority Com- 
mittee has been the consideration of 
definite concrete problems. Recent- 
ly, a small committee has been 
formed to meet occasionally and 
formulate general principles. This 
procedure first to meet conditions 
and then develop comprehensive 
principles is noteworthy." 

Seek General Principles 

The final paragraph of this bulletin 
deserves particular emphasis. It points 
out that in connection with the Brit- 
ish Priority Committee work, a small 
committee has been formed to meet 
occasionally and formulate general 
principles. Extreme criticism against 
our American methods is warranted 
on the basis that many of our efforts 
are spasmodic and detached. Our con- 
stant aim should be to look for gen- 
eral principles. In fact, we need a 
Herbert Spencer. 

As suggesting an important im- 
provement in our war purchasing 
mechanism, some of the resolutions 
adopted at the War Convention held 
in Atlantic City in September by 
American business men are worth 
quoting : — 

"Whereas, It is the spirit of 
American Business that however 
fundamental may be the change in 
the relation of Government to Bus- 
iness, the Government should have 
the power during the period of the 
war to control prices and the distri- 
bution of production for public and 
private needs to whatever extent 
may be necessary for our national 
purpose; be it 



Resolved, by the representatives 
of American Business met in War 
Convention, That all war buying 
should be assembled under the con- 
trol of one Board or Executive De- 
partment ; and be it further 

Resolved, That this war supply 
board or department should be 
given full power to procure war 
supplies to the best advantage to 
the Government as to price, quality 
and delivery and in a way to main- 
tain essential industrial life with- 
out disturbing social and economic 
conditions; including the power to 
fix prices not only to the Govern- 
ment but to the public on essential 
products and to distribute output 
in a manner to promote the nation- 
al defense and the maintenance of 
our industrial structure." 

Germany, according to Edward N. 
Hurley, then Chairman of the Federal 
Trade Commission, long ago had 85% 
of her commerce and industries repre- 
sented by trade and commercial organ- 
izations. These were fostered by the 
Imperial Government and formed an 
important link in the chain of imperial 
commerce and industry. The long- 
standing distrust of American busi- 
ness men and financiers on the part of 
the public and our government has in- 
creased our difficulty in using our 
existing trade and commercial organ- 
izations to the utmost advantage in 
prosecuting the war. It is to be hoped 
that this condition will rapidly dis- 
appear, because events have proven 
that every class in our social and in- 
dustrial mechanism has been open 
to praise for its unselfishness and 
condemnation for its profiteering ten- 
dencies. The small salaried worker of 
the country has suffered most through 
increase in the cost of living, and it 
seems probable that the workingman 
has obtained greater reward from the 



[71 



general upheaval than has the average 
business man with comparatively few 
exceptions. Unfortunately, these ex- 
ceptions are in the public eye and the 
vastly greater number of unfortunates, 
many of whom are producing the non- 
essentials, is overlooked. 

As it seems likely that we shall be 
slow compared with Great Britain in 
eliminating the production of luxuries, 
the official utterance of the United 
States Chamber of Commerce on this 
subject is entitled to consideration: 

Non-Essential Business 

"Business men everywhere are 
wondering what is non-essential 
business. This Committee is re- 
ceiving many inquiries as to the 
manner in which this will be deter- 
mined by the government and what 
course will be followed in withdraw- 
ing labor and materials from such 
industries as may be regarded as 
non-essential during the war for the 
necessities of industries essential to 
the war. 

No policy in this connection has 
been announced by the government 
and the above questions cannot be 
answered. When the occasion 
arises, what should be done seems 
clear to this Committee. No action 
except emergency action should be 
taken, except in accordance with 
some general plan based upon a 
thorough survey of industry, which, 
no doubt, has already been made. 
If unnecessary hardship is to be 
avoided, if there is to be no discrim- 
ination, the government should not 
act until a general plan has been 
formulated and made known to the 
business of the country. 

Before a business is classified as 
non-essential and deprived by act of 
government of labor and materials, 
the industry through duly elected 

[78] 



representatives should be given an 
opportunity to discuss the matter, 
and to learn the premises of the 
government and the reasons for 
action. The motive of the govern- 
ment, — the concentration of indus- 
trial energy toward winning the 
war, — appeals to all, and every in- 
dustry can be relied upon to assist 
in bringing itself into adjustment 
with the war needs of the country. 

As has been frequently pointed 
out in these Bulletins, if the govern- 
ment acts in this connection with 
sufficient dispatch, the industries of 
the country may be given an oppor- 
tunity to meet the needs of the emer- 
gency in a gradual manner and 
after deliberate planning. With 
English experience as a guide, and 
with the unhesitating support which 
business has given to the govern- 
ment in the national effort, full 
opportunity is afforded for delib- 
erate planning and adjustment. 

Where an industry is regarded as 
non-essential and must be deprived 
of labor and materials, such deliber- 
• ate planning may lead to the use of 
substitute materials or different 
processes of production. In this 
manner, unnecessary hardship may 
be avoided. 

It should be a cardinal principle 
that the normal structure of busi- 
ness should be maintained during 
these abnormal times as far as 
possible. Therefore, consideration 
should be given to the possibility of 
allowing non-essential business a 
proportion of its requirements of 
labor and materials, so that some 
organization may be retained to be 
developed again upon the return of 
peaceful conditions. 

Furthermore, when the govern- 
ment is forced to deprive a business 
of materials and labor because it is 
non-essential, an effort should be 



made by the government to place 
with the industry orders for product 
needed in the war. In this manner 
a helping hand may be given to bus- 
iness suffering solely through sacri- 
fice for the common good. In this 
same connection it may be said that 
if men are to be withdrawn from 
industrial communities where they 
have houses and gathered in manu- 
facturing centers already congested, 
there is created a great housing 
problem in connection with the pro- 
duction of war supplies. But if in 
placing war orders effort is made to 
produce war supplies in the centers 
where labor is housed, not only will 
congestion in munition centers be 
relieved, but there will be avoided 
at the end of the war the great 
problem of moving labor back to the 
normal producing centers. 

One of the reasons for suggesting 
the formation of War Service Com- 
mittees in industries was to bring 
about an early consideration of the 
above problems and to direct the 
attention of industries to the need 
in these abnormal times of prepar- 
ing for diversified or unusual pro- 
duction to keep the industries intact 
during the war. Such committees 
could effectively present to govern- 
mental authorities the manner in 
which industries might conform to 
war-time conditions. In a democ- 
racy it is certainly far better for 
industries to become adjusted to 
new conditions by cooperation be- 
tween the industries and the govern- 
ment rather than by compulsion of 
drastic and unprecedented govern- 
ment action." 

Foster Trade Organizations 
Every thinking man agrees that our 
national welfare demands the transi- 
tion from peace to war activities" with 
a minimum of interruption to our 



economic prosperity, individual, corp- 
orate, and national. A great factor in 
this must be the intelligent use of 
trade organizations and experts. Prob- 
ably the greatest service that the 
National Chamber of Comerce could 
perform for the country and the serv- 
ice most closely allied to its past activ- 
ities lies in the effective creation, 
organization and utilization of its pro- 
posed war service committees. Inval- 
uable should be the aid of such com- 
mittees in studying and assisting in 
the control of the ebb and flow of 
labor, the study of essential welfare 
problems, furnishing authentic inform- 
ation regarding productive facilities 
and processes, supplies of raw mate- 
rials, increasing the educational value 
of trade journals, costs, distributing 
problems, and, in fact, all of the im- 
portant industrial problems which yet 
remain imperfectly solved. 

Says the Chamber of Commerce 
War Bulletin No. 24 of October 8, 
1917: 

Organization of Business 

Election of War Service Committees 

"The discussions at the War Con- 
vention of American Business 
brought out the fact that the gov- 
ernment's purchases of war supplies 
are so withdrawing material and 
labor from established industry as 
to create great problems for bus- 
iness. 

Extent of Government's Demand 

The extent of the demand which 
the Government is making upon the 
industrial resources of the country 
is indicated by the recent estimates 
that the government expenditures 
for the first year of the war (includ- 
ing loans to the Allies) would 
amount to twenty-one billion dol- 
lars. This figure should be com- 



[79] 



pared with eight hundred fifty-three 
million dollars, the combined total 
of all the business done by all of the 
subsidiaries of the United States 
Steel Corporation in 1916, or with 
the estimates of the gross value of 
all the business done in the United 
States in the year 1916, which range 
between forty and eighty billion 
dollars. 

Resulting Problems 

To the established business of the 
country it is vital that these vast 
requirements of the government for 
material and labor be met in a man- 
ner to interfere as little as possible 
with essential industry and in a 
way to maintain as far as possible 
in these abnormal times the normal 
structure of business. The conclu- 
sion was reached at Atlantic City 
that each industry at the earliest 
possible moment should appoint a 
War Service Committee to speak for 
the industry in connection with 
these great problems. 

Organization for Each Industry 

Many lines of industry are se- 
riously affected by inability to get 
necessary material or labor and face 
serious problems for the future in 
connection with the shifting of labor 
from one community to another. 
Because these are problems, not only 
of the individuals in an industry 
but of the industry as a whole, the 
industry should organize and act in 
the common interest. These are 
problems not only of business but 
also for the government because it 
is essential to the winning of the 
war that the industrial life of the 
country be maintained in sound con- 
dition. Furthermore, the govern- 
ment, to procure war materials and 
supplies in the vast quantities re- 



quired, needs the advice and assist- 
ance of men having thorough ac- 
quaintance with each industry, and 
the committees can be of help in 
this connection. Also, the govern- 
ment is confronted with great prob- 
lems in connection with the regula- 
tion of prices and distribution and, 
to avoid unnecessary interference 
with business, needs. at its service 
the practical knowledge and expe- 
rience which could be furnished by 
such committees. 

Many committees have been ap- 
pointed by the government under 
the Council of National Defense. 
These committees were formed 
primarily with the thought of se- 
curing the quantites which the 
government has to purchase, rather 
than to consider the broader prob- 
lems which have more recently 
developed in securing these vast 
quantities in a manner to disturb 
business as little as possible. Fur- 
thermore, many of these commit- 
tees have become inactive; in fact, 
already a number of the committees 
have been discontinued. Commit- 
tees appointed by the government 
are of limited usefulness. 

Representative Committees 
The vital importance of having a 
truly representative committee in 
each industry to speak to the gov- 
ernment with regard to that in- 
dustry and to transmit to the indus- 
try such instructions 'as may be 
given by the government, — in short 
to furnish a point of contact with 
the government in connection with 
the problems of the industry, — was 
made clear at Atlantic City 'and 
made it seem advisable to the Con- 
vention that each industry be asked 
to hold a special meeting of all 
those engaged in the industry to 
elect a War Service Committee. 



[80 



It was thought that such com- 
mittees might undertake the follow- 
ing: 

1. To assemble accurate information 
with respect to the facilities of the 
industry, the possibilities of expan- 
sion or the readjustment of plants 
and equipment to meet the ever in- 
creasing requirements of the govern- 
ment. 

2. To arrange for the gathering of fig- 
ures as to cost of production in the 
industry, including conditions in the 
industry which were changing the 
cost of production. In this respect 
the committee would furnish to the 
government information which would 
prevent avoidable hardship in the 
business by government regulation 
of prices or distribution. 

3. To act with the Priority Committee of 

the War Industries Board which is 
establishing principles governing the 
distribution of materials in transpor- 
tation and the order in which various 
products are to be produced and 
distributed. The work of the Prior- 
ities Committee calls for an immense 
organization and the quick adjust- 
ment of industry to the demands of 
the priority system. A "War Service 
Committee representing an entire 
industry can be of great value in 
dealing with priority questions with 
relation to that industry. 

4. New facilities are being created and 
there is great shifting of labor from 
one section of the country to an- 
other. War Service Committees 
could offer suggestions regarding the 
use of existing facilities or the em- 
ployment of labor in districts of the 
country where needed after the war. 

5. These committees should be ready 
at all times to meet with any of the 
departments of the government when- 
ever their advice is desired, to dis- 
cuss questions affecting the industry 
raised by the war needs of the gov- 
ernment. The committees might also, 
on their own initiative, present to the 
government questions which call for 
consideration. The committees might 
from time to time suggest on behalf 
of the industry how orders and ma- 
terial can be distributed to the best 
advantage, and with the least distur- 
bance to existing or prospective con- 
ditions. 

Selection of Committees 
It is evident that the War Service 
Committees can be of great use to 
the government and to the industry 



but to reach the fullest service such 
committees should be formed in a 
thoroughly democratic manner. All 
engaged in an industry should meet 
and after careful discussion and 
thought a committee should be 
elected representing the large plants 
and the small plants, the geograph- 
ical distribution of the industry, 
and composed of men of thorough 
actual acquaintance with the bus- 
iness and the conditions prevailing. 
In this connection it is suggested 
that the following points should be 
kept in mind in selecting the mem- 
bership of such committees : 

A. All branches of the industry should 
be represented on the committee, 
whether members of a trade organ- 
ization or not. 

B. It is important that the committee 
should include representatives ot 
some of the smaller units of the 
industry as well as the larger. 

C. To be in a position to render efficient 
service, the committee should not 
necessarily be made up of the presi- 
dents of the largest units of the 
business or of the best known men, 
but should contain men of recognized 
ability who have a thorough knowl- 
edge of the important details of the 
industry, particularly costs, specifi- 
cations and volume of production. 
Where the industry is widely scat- 
tered and different problems exist in 
different sections, it is important to 
have the different sections of the 
country represented, but effort 
should be made to appoint a com- 
mittee which can be readily assem- 
bled for committee meetings. 

D. Sub-committees of the important 
branches of the industry should be 
appointed to cooperate with the War 
Service Committee wherever pos- 
sible. 

In general War Service Commit- 
tees should be composed of men 
with a broad view of the industry 
as a whole and with full comprehen- 
sion of the fact that the war calls 
for far-reaching changes in the 
methods of nearly every business in 
order to meet present national re- 
quirements. 



[81 



It is important that meetings for 
the selection of War Service Com- 
mittees be held at the earliest pos- 
sible moment. It was the unani- 
mous vote of the Atlantic City- 
convention that the Chamher of 
Commerce of the United States be 
requested to bring to the attention 
of all industrial interests the need 
of prompt action and give its aid in 
every possible way in the formation 
of committees. 

Personnel of Committees 

The National Chamber is glad to 
perform this service. It requests 
that as fast as meetings are held 
in various lines there be sent to its 
headquarters in Washington a list 
of all those in the industry invited 
to participate in the meeting, a list 
of all those who attended the meet- 
ing and the names of the members 
of the War Service Committee 
chosen, with brief data about these 
committee members and their bus- 
iness connections. Records of 
the committees organized in all 
lines will be assembled in Wash- 
ington and as soon as practical 
a meeting of the committee chair- 



men will be called for the pur- 
pose of selecting an Executive Com- 
mittee and to discuss a program of 
work on common lines for all com- 
mittees. The Chamber of Com- 
merce of the United States earnestly 
requests your immediate attention 
on this matter and urges that you- 
use your influence to secure action 
quickly. 

In having a general meeting of 
all business men engaged in an in- 
dustry, it is suggested that where 
there is an existing organization 
in the industry this organization 
call such a general meeting. Where 
there are two or more organizations 
in a business that the organizations 
should jointly call such a meeting. 
Where there is no organization in 
the business, it is suggested that 
some of the leading men in the in- 
dustry immediately call the meeting. 

In some industries committees 
have already been formed in accord- 
ance with the procedure outlined 
above. To establish the credentials 
of such committees it would be well 
to furnish a list of those invited to 
the meeting and of those actually 
attending the meeting at which the 
committee was elected. 



[83] 



XIII 

The Council of National Defense 



As the Council of National Defense 
is the mechanism which was chiefly 
organized for the purpose of absorb- 
ing the shock occasioned by war, it 
would be instructive to study the min- 
utes of that body in order to ascertain 
its own powers and capabilities for 
growth and organization. In this con- 
nection, the Advisory Commission of 
the Council bears a direct relation to 
the constructive abilities of the Coun- 
cil itself, because it appears to be 
thoroughly dominated by the Council 
— to such a degree, in fact, that the 
Advisory Commission to an outside 
observer never presented the appear- 
ance of being an entity. It seemed 
more like a parasite. 

The chief reliance for coordination 
between the Council and its Commis- 
sion, as well as amongst the individual 
members of both Council and Commis- 
sion, was Mr. W. S. Gifford, who had 
been appointed Director of both Coun- 
cil and Commission. Mr. Gifford is a 
young man whose voluntary service on 
the Naval Consulting Board had been 
usefully engaged upon the first real 
war industrial census made by this 
country. Mr. Gifford was Chief Sta- 
tistician for the American Telephone 
and Telegraph Company and brought 
to his service in Washington a well- 
informed mathematical type of mind, 
to which he added tact and diplomacy 
to such a degree that he has remained 
Director through all the difficulties 
which have confronted him. His ef- 
forts have steadily been bent toward 
a more effective coordination and, al- 
though more slowly than one would 
have expected, toward collection of ac- 
curate statistics and other data of 
national value. Had Mr. Gifford pos- 



sessed greater experience in the busi- 
ness world and perhaps greater force, 
his influence might have been suffi- 
ciently dominating to be more effec- 
tive than it has proven. 

The Council of National Defense, 
consisting of six Cabinet officers, 
merely grouped under that title, car- 
ried on work which without the crea- 
tion of the Council would probably 
have been mainly handled anyway by 
their respective departments. The 
Council gave perhaps an added excuse 
for more frequent meetings of that 
particular group of Cabinet execu- 
tives. The Commission, as well as an 
outsider in constant contact with some 
of its activities for several months 
could judge, held infrequent meetings 
and apparently each Commissioner to 
a large degree "paddled his own ca- 
noe." The personnel of the Commis- 
sion, to some extent, would explain this 
condition at a time when it might be 
supposed that the country needed the 
best amalgamated ideas of its leading 
thinkers. 

The experience of one individual 
who endeavored to further the efforts 
of the Advisory Commission may be 
outlined. Early in April finding a 
scarcity of furniture in Washington, a 
half carload of office furniture was 
shipped hurriedly to Washington and 
offered to the Advisory Commission, 
but it was not accepted, although, at 
the time, the efforts of the Commission 
were handicapped by lack of office 
equipment. 

Washington was being invaded by 
literally thousands of men thrusting 
their services upon the Council, but 
for many weeks no central point was 
provided where these anxious volun- 



[83; 



teers could have their simplest in- 
quiries answered. This need was so 
obvious that it was frequently urged 
upon the Director and others of the 
Commission. 

The difficulty of learning the loca- 
tion of people who were engaged by 
the Council or Commission, lack of 
information regarding duties, author- 
ity and plans, the fact that commis- 
sioners were duplicating each other's 
activities, the prevalent evidence that 
the whole effort was almost a "go as 
you please" affair, because no compre- 
hensive plans had been prepared in ad- 
vance, all contributed to the conclusion 
that one of the most urgent needs of 
the Commission was a bureau of in- 
formation which should centralize the 
changing and growing plans and in- 
formation from day to day and serve 
as a clearing-house for all who had a 
right to use it. 

With this need in mind, the offer 
was made to the Director and Secre- 
tary of the Advisory Commission by 
the above-mentioned individual that he 
would, at his own expense, estimated 
to cost $20,000 to $50,000 per year, es- 
tablish a clipping bureau for the pur- 
pose of furnishing to the leading exec- 
utives and commissioners abstracts of 
information pertaining to their func- 
tions. It was the idea that this de- 
partment should gradually become a 
bureau of information aiming to meet 
the growing needs of the Council and 
the Commission and to assist in con- 
tacting with other governmental de- 
partments. It contemplated the cre- 
ation of a library for the purpose of 
gathering and disseminating the 
wealth of important literature bearing 
upon Great Britain's and other war 
experiences and contemplated also a 
definite method for marketing this 
useful information to those who might 
not realize its value, but who, by per- 
sistent education, should, in time, be 



enabled to use it. A complete multi- 
graphing outfit was tendered as an im- 
portant auxiliary to such service. Such 
a bureau had untold value as an 
educational and unifying factor but 
it never appealed sufficiently to have 
the proposal accepted or encouraged, 
or even to have, in any comprehensive 
way, the idea copied. 

The British Prime Minister is said 
to have one clipping bureau devoted 
exclusively to compiling information 
obtained from enemy countries relat- 
ing to their plans. A specially edited 
daily paper furnishes the Kaiser and 
the German General Staff with in- 
formation essential to their daily 
activities. 

The individual mentioned had vis- 
ited Great Britain and France, had 
studied munition plants, hospitals, 
the shipyards, the fleet and the armies 
at the front and for a year had been 
collecting literature bearing upon such 
war problems. Up to date he has en- 
deavored to make this collection of 
service to various departments of the 
government, many of which need 
some of the information involved and 
do not know where to get it. Our 
large industrial corporations have 
demonstrated the usefulness of equiv- 
alent libraries and information de- 
partments, but have generally discov- 
ered that it takes a long time to edu- 
cate employees to make adequate use 
of such facilities, and to succeed quick- 
ly, centralized educational direction 
from the top is essential. 

Organization Without a Backbone 

The appointment of great numbers 
of committees, often without their 
powers or authority clearly outlined, 
often duplicating activities or exist- 
ing with huge gaps, has often shown 
the need for central direction of or- 
ganization on a comprehensive scale. 



[84] 



Mr. Daniel Willard's organization 
progress as Chairman of the Advisory- 
Commission and of its Transportation 
Committee illustrated the lack of gen- 
eral supervision of that vital problem 
of organization which was entitled to 
first consideration as the first step in 
preparation for war work. Although 
considerable progress has been made 
without such unified planning, the cost 
to the country through unnecessary 
delays must be great beyond measure. 
It is evident upon reflection that every 
one of the illustrations mentioned in 
this pamphlet applying to several of 
the most important functions of our 
war machine leads to the same general 
conclusion. We have plunged into our 
activities with unnecessarily limited 
foresight, forethought and foreplan- 
ning. Impelled by the immense amount 
of work to be done, every executive 



has immediately made of himself a 
routine operating man. The very pat- 
riotism and energy of their efforts kept 
goading them on to doing more work 
themselves. The feeling of responsi- 
bility for their individual problem 
more and more made it difficult to ap- 
ply the broad vision that accompanies 
detached thinking. Thus it became 
increasingly difficult to apply the rem- 
edy. The more the machine speeded 
up, the more each man became the 
slave of his own work and the more 
his chief thought was to be let alone 
to do the daily tasks which were crush- 
ing down upon him. Perhaps the sur- 
prising part is that, under such cir- 
cumstances, the achievement is as 
great as it is. Every American must 
admire the fortitude, the grim deter- 
mination, the superb patriotism that 
underlie these achievements. 



85 



XIV 



Congress, Apply the Lessons! 



Unfortunately the invisible censor- 
ship, the very evident distaste for in- 
vestigation, criticism and, at times, 
even suggestion, have made application 
of the fundamental remedy impossible 
until the compelling power of Congress 
"lifted the lid." 

And now the main thought must be 
"How can the nation obtain the utmost 
in result from the feverish activities 
of its war personnel?" 

We have not in this country, as En- 
gland has, an organized "Opposition," 
therefore we must increasingly rely 
upon our executives for voluntary 
frankness. Lord Northcliffe has in- 
sistently and persistently told the 
British that censorship served chiefly 
to hide government inefficiency. Our 
own experience suggests that it might 
be safer to tell Germany the 10% she 
does not know about our war progress 
rather than keep from Americans the 
90% we still need to know in order to 
enforce adequate speed and efficiency. 

The American has astonishing re- 
spect for officialdom. His confidence 
in his leaders is unbounded, all of 
which throws upon our executives an 
extreme obligation for honest frank- 
ness. At present the nation is faced 
by an actual shortage of mutton, beef, 
pork and grain which is largely re- 
sponsible for the difficulty in limiting 
prices. The public has not been told 
this frankly by our executives, there- 
by permitting the I. W. W. and other 
agitators to blame the high cost of liv- 
ing entirely upon profiteers, which is 
only partly correct. Had our people 
been officially informed with frank- 
ness regarding the unquestioned atroc- 
ities of Germans and Austrians prior 
to our entering the war and even after 

[ 



the unrestricted submarine campaign, 
it seems probable that public opinion 
and Congress would have felt war- 
ranted in forcing preparations which 
would perhaps have saved us a year of 
war. 

Sympathetic Suggestion 
Acceptable? 

It is difficult for Congress, with 
only the superficial information which 
even extended investigation can fur- 
nish of this tremendous national ef- 
fort, to formulate specific changes in 
organization that are likely to meet 
with the support of the executives in- 
volved in sufficient degree to insure 
success. 

It is to be hoped, however, that sym- 
pathetic suggestions from Congress 
might lead the executives themselves 
to carry out in principle and to formu- 
late in detail whatever is necessary to 
achieve maximum progress. 

If the President desires to retain 
active direction of the business of wag- 
ing war, it might be feasible, with no 
new legislation, for him to appoint an 
assistant as business manager, or or- 
ganizing assistant, or with no title 
whatever, in whom should focus all of 
the strictly business problems in- 
volved. Then were this individual to 
be reinforced with an adequate plan- 
ning department which should have the 
benefit of the President's frequent ad- 
vice, it would seem that permanent or- 
ganization, correct in principle, could 
be quickly provided. 

Our nine months of war experience 
have taught many lessons. The New 
Year should make us resolved to apply 
them. The plan suggested would 
doubtless occasionally require added 

86] 



legislation, because it would probably 
be attended by rearrangement of de- 
partmental responsibilities and per- 
haps the creation of new departments. 
But whatever changes were made 
would necessarily be made with con- 
sideration of the entire situation and 
all the national and international 
needs rather than through the unbal- 
anced pressure that now is the chief 
cause of progressive changes in organ- 
ization and activity. 

If such a plan should meet with 
opposition, the method favored by 
many students of organization, in- 
volving the creation of a superior 
War Council or Board, overriding 
the Cabinet departments and heading 
directly up to the President, offers cer- 
tainty of marked increase of efficiency 
and speed. This more nearly corre- 
sponds to the British method. Its suc- 
cess, likewise, depends greatly upon 
the individuals appointed to such ex- 
treme powers. Some of our executive 
appointments in the past have scarcely 
commanded the approval of the 
country. 

While one must admire the Presi- 
dent's loyalty to the associates he has 
chosen and to his appointees to vari- 
ous staffs, it is nevertheless important 
to remember that even capable men 
wear out under the strain of war work 
and that not all men of even admitted 
ability possess the adaptability to op- 
erate successfully in new surroundings 
and under new conditions. Also it is 
difficult to judge whether a man has 
sufficient constructive ability to meet 
the demands of a rapidly changing re- 
sponsibility until he has been tried in 
the actual performance. Should he 
not come up to expectations, it is no 
disgrace to the man, as there may be 
other positions in which he would 
succeed. Our unwillingness to make 
special effort to get the best men fitted 
into the right places without fear or 

[ 



favor has brought forth warranted 
criticism. 

There are two ways to succeed. One 
is by doing the right thing ; the other 
is by doing the wrong thing, but cor- 
recting it so quickly that the net result 
is quick progress. Nobody is infall- 
ible. Never before have individuals 
faced such tremendous situations. Al- 
most any mistake can be forgiven if 
corrected with courage and speed. 

A special committee, entrusted 
with locating the ablest operating and 
constructive minds in America should 
be constantly seeking the qualities so 
urgently needed in high places in 
Washington, always requiring the 
square peg for the square hole. 

Let Us Begin Anew 

It is said that America has always 
done what she set herself to do. Un- 
fortunately, our history shows, that 
while this is true, the price has gener- 
ally been unnecessarily high. 

Let us organize the encouragement 
and analysis of suggestions in every 
department and the application of use- 
ful ones. 

Let us discover governing principles 
' in each one of our general activities. 
Let us discontinue reliance upon charts 
of organization which do not function. 
Let us with central leadership develop 
inspection forces capable of preventing 
honest mistake or abuse on the part 
of profiteers in whatever station and 
sufficiently intelligent to carry the les- 
sons to the executives who can apply 
measures to correct avoidable weak- 
nesses. 

Great Britain has learned the im- 
mense value of flying squadrons of 
skilled workers willing to jump to 
strengthen the weakest spot in produc- 
tion, wherever it may appear. Let us 
apply the flying squadron idea not only 
to skilled workers, but to managers, en- 
gineers, auditors, cost clerks, shipping 
87] 



clerks, superintendents and all of the 
essential positions that at any time in- 
dicate weakness. 

Let us also apply the idea of train- 
ing and education so that not only pro- 
gressive improvement in the carrying 
out of duties, but also coordination 
and unification of method and plan, 
shall result. 

Let the accumulation of accurate 
data and information, of comprehen- 
sive ideas and suggestion be devel- 
oped so that it may be sifted and 
filtered and furnished in sufficiently 
condensed form to all of those who 
need and should use it. 

Stagnation, conflict, disagreement 
must be reported and delay obviated 
by adequate checking systems. 

Let our means for investigation be 
like the "tanks," capable of overriding 
any entanglements. 

National census of alien and indus- 
try, of skilled worker and raw mate- 
rial, of every factor that needs regu- 
lative distribution and application 
must not be delayed through dismay 
over the size of the task. 

Mathematics, properly applied, will 
win the war. 

If our strictly military operations 
must be separated from the business 
of purchase, production and distri- 
bution, let the job be clearly and thor- 
oughly done. 

Let us no longer rely upon such 
mechanisms as the Aircraft Board 
limited to an expenditure of $100,- 
000, accepted by the country as 
the responsible body for produc- 
ing the aerial fleet which is to win 
victory and yet limited in fact to 
mere suggestion and without organiza- 
tion even to suggest comprehensively. 
Without discredit to the members of 
that Board, one is warranted in pre- 
dicting that Germany will be superior 
to her enemies in the air next Spring. 
Let our entire military activities, 



including naval, be concentrated in a 
supreme General Staff formed of ex- 
perts, capable of applying aggressive- 
ly the combined military, naval 
political, financial, commercial, indus- 
trial and other forces which collec- 
tively form our national strength as 
applied against the enemy. 

Above all, let us cease applying make- 
shift remedies. The proposed creation 
of a munitions chief to be a Cabinet 
member and to control production of 
war supplies would, it is true, be an 
improvement over present arrange- 
ments, but the lack of coordination 
among the Cabinet executives and the 
various administrators would still re- 
main a fatal weakness. 

Is This Patriotism ? 

About the middle of last June, two 
American business men who had been 
giving their time in Washington, be- 
came alarmed over the lack of co- 
ordination and vision and the com- 
placency that seemed to prevent the 
doing of our utmost and arranged a 
meeting in New York with fifteen or 
twenty leading newspaper owners and 
editors. A series of facts showing 
specific danger from enemy spy ac- 
tivities, from vacillation and mistakes 
in the Navy Department, from the lack 
of coordination everywhere, from the 
invisible censorship and the difficulty 
of carrying suggestion effectively to 
some executives, was presented. Then 
the newspaper men were urged to 
speak more frankly to the country. 
They admitted the truth of the facts 
presented and the inevitable danger 
that must result from continuation of 
such conditions, but they said, "The 
country considers it patriotic to 
stand behind the President and any- 
thing which appears in any way to 
be a criticism of the administration 
will not be tolerated by the people. 



[88] 



Nothing can be done until there is 
a disaster." 

Since then we have had disaster 
after disaster. Some of them have not 
appealed to Americans because dis- 
aster in Italy, disaster in Russia, dis- 
aster in our own shipbuilding plans, 
have not yet assumed their proper re- 
lationship in the public mind. Is it 
true that democracy must depend upon 
disaster for progress? Can autoc- 
racy alone calmly and efficiently plan 
and provide in advance against the 
problems of the future? 

For many months, the Patriotic Ed- 
ucation Society has endeavored to 
carry these messages to our executives 
and, failing in that, to our people; 
but much yet remains to be done. 

For nine months the supply of 
spruce necessary to carry out our own 
airplane program and that of our al- 
lies has been jeopardized for want of 
a few thousand lumbermen in the 
spruce forests of the Northwest. 
Plan after plan has been made by 
the Aircraft Board and the War 
Department to overcome this diffi- 
culty, even including sending men 
from the cantonments into the forest. 
These plans have generally been 
thwarted by some other bureau or di- 
vision of the War Department itself. 
This is not surprising perhaps when 
one considers at random other typical 
instances showing lack of recognized 
policy and control by employees of 
various government departments : — 

a. The War Department located a 
quantity of TNT and was negotiating 
for a lower price when the entire lot 
was purchased by the Navy at the 
price asked by the owner. 

b. A certain product was sold at six 
different prices to six different de- 
partments in the War Department. 

c. Methods and times of payment 
for purchases differ in various depart- 

[ 



ments and also in the same depart- 
ment. 

d. An officer in the Ordnance De- 
partment was recently actively en- 
gaged in recruiting labor for the 
Ordnance Department from munition 
plants in one of the greatest munitions 
producing districts of the country. 

e. Contracts for shipyards on the 
Pacific coast were let without any re- 
gard to the local labor supply. 

f. Both public and official attention 
have been so largely concerned with 
the problem of building ships that 
the equally important one of opera- 
ting ships in service efficiently has 
been sadly neglected, as even super- 
ficial investigation would disclose. 

g. The War Department's recently 
organized War Council apparently 
duplicates the work which properly be- 
longs to the General Staff. 

h. A writer in the New York Times, 
December 23rd, 1917, states there 
have been three thousand strikes 
since we entered the war. No gov- 
ernment department has a list of these 
strikes, nor complete data regarding 
the causes of their origin, method of 
settlement and present conditions. 

i. It is said that we sent to France 
when we entered the war more than 
four thousand Red Cross doctors, 
nurses, ambulance drivers, without in- 
vestigation as to their qualifications 
and loyalty. The government had been 
repeatedly warned that this was a pro- 
lific field for spies and several have 
already been found among those early 
quotas. 

j. With an accumulation of freight 
at Vladivostok estimated to require 
from two to seven years to transfer 
over the Siberian railway, the un- 
necessary drain on ship tonnage is 
evident at a glance. 

k. An officer recently from the front 
in France sees evidence that insuffi- 
cient attention is being paid to the 
89] 



production of those supplies most 
needed first and fears that we will 
produce enormous quantities of ma- 
terial not needed for a long time at 
the expense of things urgently needed 
first. This is closely related to the 
Vladivostok condition mentioned in 
the preceding paragraph. 

1. The statement was made in the 
spring of 1917 that the Navy Depart- 
ment had contracted for 70% of the 
capacity of American shipyards. It 
might be interesting to investigate 
the cooperation between the Navy De- 
partment, the Shipping Board and the 
ship builders for the purpose of mak- 
ing all our ship building facilities go 
furthest and to meet the most urgent 
needs first. 

m. Some of the 154 committees of 
the Council of National Defense 
scored Congress for delay in making 
appropriations specifically requested 
by executive department officials. A 
national budget system placing re- 
sponsibility upon executives would 
seem to be an important war measure. 

n. From the Manufacturers' Record 
of November 1st, 1917, we quote: — 

"We recently published a summary 
of a report of a committee on the ni- 
trate question, but, as we have studied 
that report, we cannot accept all of 
its conclusions. Two of the recommen- 
dations were as follows: 

"That the decision as to more ex- 
tensive installation of nitrogen fixa- 
tion processes and water-power de- 
velopment in connection with them be 
postponed until the plants above 
recommended are in operation or until 
further need arises. 

"That while the preceding recom- 
mendations include all the measures 
that can now judiciously be taken for 
the fixation of ammonia, it is the opin- 
ion of the committee that the imme- 
diate accumulation and the permanent 
maintenance of an ample reserve not 



less than 500,000 tons of Chile salt- 
peter is the measure most urgently 
necessary. 

"Here is an urgent, imperative call 
to accumulate immediately 500,000 
tons of Chilean saltpeter and the main- 
tenance of that amount as a reserve. 
Even if no adverse conditions of any 
kind as to submarines or as to the in- 
ability to secure Chilean nitrates 
should be developed, it would require 
100 shiploads of 5,000 tons each to 
bring this nitrate to America and 
many other shiploads to keep up the 
supply. 



"The coal shortage is being inten- 
sified by the lack of water-power de- 
velopment, and the nation is suffering 
today in every direction — in army 
work and navy work, in factory opera- 
tions and in private homes — because 
we have thrown around coal produc- 
tion unwise restrictions, and because 
coal now, of necessity, enters into 
many uses for which hydro-electric 
power would be available but for the 
blunders of Congress, led by profes- 
sional theorists and alleged patriots. 

"It seems to us almost criminal 
shortsightedness to depend upon the 
purchase of 500,000 tons of Chilean 
saltpeter and the maintenance of a 
reserve of that amount, for it is ex- 
ceedingly doubtful if we can secure ;L 
and certainly we cannot secure it in 
time and certainly we have not the 
shipping to spare for it. 

"The suggestion that a new system 
of producing nitrate may work out 
satisfactorily, however high may be 
the character of the men who made 
this report, must, of necessity, be open 
to serious question as to its wisdom 
when coupled with this purchase of 
Chilean nitrates as a prime requisite 
while waiting to test out the new sys- 
tem. Had a decision been reached 



90 



that the Government should imme- 
diately spend the $20,000,000 which 
Congress voted for that express pur- 
pose, the work might have been well 
under way, and had not the dilatory 
tactics of the first committee to whom 
this matter was committed by Con- 
gress — dilatory because they did not 
apparently recognize the one supreme 
issue before the world of making war 
and saving ourselves — delayed the 
work, we might be almost at the point 
today of being able to produce nitrates 
equal to our needs. Time more price- 
less than any time in all human his- 
tory was wasted and is being wasted, 
and the life of the nation may yet 



hang in the balance because of that 
wasted time." 

Who Is Responsible? 

An American technical expert who 
was investigating fixation plants in 
Europe about a year ago remarked 
that not until Germany considered 
herself equipped to produce artificial 
nitrates did she start the war. If we 
are to apply the Lewis gun principle 
to the nitrate supply who assumes the 
responsibility? Study the organiza- 
tion chart on the back cover of this 
pamphlet and see if you can find out 
where the blame would rest should 
national disaster result from this 
delay. 



;9i] 



XV 



Importance of Personnel 



It is rumored that the Advisory Com- 
mission of the Council of National 
Defense was offered by President Wil- 
son all of the power and authority that 
it was willing to accept. The Advisory 
Commissioners quickly became, like 
the Cabinet officers, routine men. There 
was little evidence on the outside of 
their meeting regularly and frequently, 
like a Board of Directors, to consider 
the general policies and functions of 
the Commission. Even if they had 
attempted to operate as a Board and 
build an organization capable of rapid 
expansion to meet every emergency, 
one might question whether with the 
personnel of the Advisory Commission 
much success would have followed, 
unless by good fortune a chief could 
have been obtained who had the con- 
fidence and daily support of the Pres- 
ident and who could lead the Commis- 
sion toward definite policies and action 
unhampered by the retarding influ- 
ence of the bureaucratic peace organ- 
izations. 

Given correct organization, even me- 
diocrity of personnel cannot prevent 
progress. In industrial life exception- 
al ability and energy may override red 
tape and obstruction. But in Federal 
affairs even that possibility is lacking 
because the job is so big and inter- 
locking that individual effort, without 
organized initiative, is imprisoned. 
Nevertheless, when all work is new, 
when every day brings unexpected 
changes, the constructive mind is 
needed in every expanding department 
and committee. 

Washington and the world generally 
have not distinguished between con- 
structive and operating abilities. The 
good operating man is usually a rou- 
ts 



tine man — he wants conditions fixed 
and unchanging in order to achieve 
efficiency. When improvements in 
method and mechanism are not neces- 
sary the less change the better for 
efficiency. But when method and 
mechanism are inadequate then con- 
structive thought is required. Con- 
structive minds usually chafe under 
stationary conditions. They long for 
the best and try to obtain it even at 
sacrifice of temporary efficiency. The 
man who effectively combines operat- 
ing efficiency with constructive vision 
is rare. He is usually his own boss. 

Americans are apt to worship men 
who have achieved national fame. Even 
though their distinction has been 
gained in one narrow field, the famous 
one is usually credited by the unthink- 
ing with universal knowledge. Fre- 
quently the man of national reputation 
owes his apparent success to conditions 
to which he in no way contributed. 
Study of the careers of some of the 
prominent business men in Washington 
today shows that several of them have 
become connected with organizations 
containing all of the essentials for 
success and have simply been carried 
along by those organizations, thus 
gaining an undeserved prestige. 

The student is scarcely expected to 
find many highly constructive minds 
among railroad executives, because 
railroad operating has become a highly 
developed routine business and the 
bank control of our railroads has not 
been conducive to independent con- 
structive effort. 

These thoughts give good reason for 
more frequent change of personnel in 
high positions of authority than has 
been visible in Washington. Congres- 



sional investigation and worse disas- 
ters than we have yet recognized will 
be necessary to change these condi- 
tions, unless our present rule by over- 
loaded co-equals is quickly altered. 

Our Washington administrative or- 
ganization violates the important can- 
ons of business organization. All of 
our chief executives are overloaded 
with detail and prevented by their very 
responsibilities from taking adequate 
national view points. The President, 
as their only chief, through burden of 
overwhelming world problems, cannot 
be expected in himself to supply this 
deficiency. 

Every student of our weaknesses 
knows that the demand for democracy 
has pervaded both our peace and war 
governing machine to such degree that 
the very safety of democracy is threat- 
ened thereby. Our rule by "Debating 
Society Committees" is democratic. 
Our two-headed Shipping Board (even 
when each head considered himself the 
direct agent of the President) was 
democratic. Our seven-headed War In- 
dustries Board with complete authority 
to talk to the War and Navy Depart- 
ments and to the public is certainly 
democratic. 

But even our democratic daily life 
knows the principle of the Boss. He 
plans, he orders. Let Congress and 
Mr. Wilson legalize and recognize a 
few properly qualified and unflinch- 
ingly supported square-jawed Bosses. 
Let them know that speed in the public 
mind will outweigh a few quickly 
corrected mistakes. 



National Flexibility Needed 

While Great Britain and France 
have been for their military and econo- 
mic safety throwing hampering tra- 
dition and conservatism to the winds 
America has lived complacently in the 
past. 

Searching their prejudices and hab- 
its along with their hearts they are 
indeed building new nations. Do we 
know that our educational system does 
not meet present-day needs? Are we 
seeking new method and device and 
suggestion from the corners of the 
earth? Do we realize that our very 
form of government has faults that 
may cripple our future? That our 48 
States handicap in unnecessary ways 
our national defense? Are we plan- 
ning for the utmost momentum in this 
war and the continuing world struggle 
to follow? Does our self-approval hide 
the fact that the vast majority of our 
corporations, according to our Federal 
Trade Commission, do not figure their 
costs accurately? The treatment of 
both our poor neighbors and our pris- 
oners has been barbarous. Our Future 
bids us take stock of our short and our 
long comings. 

Great Britain has been peculiarly 
fortunate in having as Prime Minister 
a man brave enough to ignore prece- 
dent when precedent did not suffice. 
By word and deed he fought to put 
the business men in positions of auth- 
ority and he forced reforms of organ- 
ization to give those men a chance. 

Our organizing has been halting and 
partial, our efforts spasmodic and 
visionless. 



93 



XVI 

The Next Six Months 



Napoleon early in his career pointed 
to a principle upon which his own suc- 
cess was built and which the Germans 
have been consistently applying to the 
repeated discomfiture of their antagon- 
ists, "Unity of Command Is Essential 
to Success. Time Is Everything." 

A prominent French officer has re- 
cently said "One soldier in 1918 is 
worth several later." 

Says M. Andre Tardieu, French 
High Commissioner, just returned 
from France: "Although the war 
may be prolonged for years it will be 
decided in the next six months." 

Rumor has it that our national sup- 
plies of chlorine, toluol, pyrites (for 
sulphuric acid, the very keystone of 
our war chemicals), manganese, ni- 
trate and other related materials are 
not sufficiently provided against all 
contingencies. Investigation behind 
closed doors might here find further 
argument for speed in reorganiza- 
tion. Have shipping, the expanding 
war demand for chemicals, all the 
acts necessary for speeding the 
safeguarding of both our soldiers 
in Europe and the resources behind 
them, have all these been in proper 
sequence and relation considered? 
Are we applying the experience of 
Europe in salvaging all wastes and 
remnants of value and converting 
them to fresh service? 

Experimental Facilities Adequate? 

The Washington Post of December 
23d in its leading editorial makes an 
earnest plea for national concentration 
of inventive resource and genius 
against the submarine, as our in- 
creased shipbuilding program is mere- 

[ 



ly furnishing increased fodder for the 
submarine. 

So insistent have been the complaints 
of inventors, even of national repute, 
over the difficulty of obtaining ade- 
quate consideration for their sugges- 
tions that one is justified in fearing 
that our national experimental facili- 
ties are inadequate to the need and 
that our professional military and 
naval chiefs and many of their sub- 
ordinates are not sufficiently receptive 
toward new ideas, especially those 
developed by outsiders. 

Congressional investigation into this 
problem and increased liberality of 
appropriation seem worthy of consid- 
eration. 

Plan Our Utmost Now? 

Assuming, as has frequently been 
stated, that the Allies have 7,000,000 
troops on the Western front opposed 
to 3,000,00 of the Central Powers, 
what "preponderating force" must 
America hurl at the enemy in the 
West to gain a military victory? 

First we planned an army of one 
million — now three million are men- 
tioned. If seven million men can- 
not whip three million men defend- 
ing their own frontiers, equipped 
with every facility of transportation 
and supply, carefully developed by 
years of study, is it not within the 
bounds of reason that America must 
needs send five million, perhaps even 
ten million men to Europe to whip 
autocracy? Is it not reasonable to 
consider that German thoroughness 
may obtain food and other supplies 
from Russia even though Russia her- 
self may need them? The chief hope 
94] 



of an early peace has been built 
upon a starving Germany — but that is 
a dangerous reliance. It would there- 
fore seem to behoove us to make thor- 
ough plans for a long war involving 
our utmost contribution of soldiers, 
production and transportation. 

Optimistic statements of the Ship- 
ping Board chiefs before the Congres- 
sional Investigation Committee indi- 
cate that with one shift per day our 
shipyards are likely to produce ten mil- 
lion tons deadweight in two years. Let 
us not forget that ten million tons 
deadweight mean only about four mil- 
lion net tons or perhaps six million 
gross tons. 

An American civilian returning in 
December, 1916, from a visit to the 
British fleet and the shipyards of the 
Clyde explained to Secretary Daniels 
how it was that the British shipbuild- 
ers could complete a super-dread- 
naught or battle cruiser in less than 
20 months when American shipbuild- 
ers were figurng upon 48 to 54 months. 
The explanation was simple. Amer- 
ican yards worked one shift of 8 hours 
per day, the British used two shifts 
of 10 hours each. Our munition fac- 
tories all over the land were working 
two and three shifts per day but ap- 
parently our own vitally important 
shipbuilding program was being de- 
layed for lack of application of this 
common principle: — that the quickest 
way to increase the output from lim- 
ited facilities is to work those facilities 
24 hours per day. If our shipyards are 
able with one shift to produce five mil- 
lion tons deadweight per year, why 
should we not treble our program and 
aim at 15 million tons dead weight in 
1918, this output to result from operat- 
ing the yards 24 hours per day? Fif- 
teen million tons in 1918 will be worth 
to the world double the value of that 
same tonnage produced in two years. 
But this means labor control in the 



shipyards, in our transportation sys- 
tems and in all directly subsidiary ac- 
tivities. Is not the result worth the 
effort? 

Most Urgent Immediate Need 

The charge as made by Representa- 
tive Clarence B. Miller regarding our 
bungling transport service to France 
connected with many other reports of 
ineffective use of existing tonnage 
points to this as one of our most ur- 
gent needs for improvement in con- 
cert with our Allies and neutral 
nations. Placing all of our efforts in 
the order of both time and importance 
one is warranted in suggesting that 
this is the most urgent of all. 

In our enthusiasm over the launch- 
ing of ships we must remember that it 
takes ordinarily about three months 
to fit out a ship for service after it 
has been launched. In the last stages 
of a world conflict those three months 
might represent the difference between 
victory and defeat. 

Constructive Criticism, Privately 
Applied, Failed 

Many military authorities believe 
that had America entered the war 
when the Lusitania was sunk the world 
would now be at peace, the great deci- 
sion obtained with far less sacrifice 
than has already been made. So anx- 
ious have been many of our executives 
to obtain the approval of the country 
for their great achievements since 
America entered the war, those 
achievements measured against peace 
conditions rather than against war 
needs, that it does not seem an over- 
statement to say that an organized 
propaganda has been used for this pur- 
pose directed largely from Washing- 
ton. Had the same effort been ap- 
plied to looking forward rather than 
backward, to estimating the needs of 
next year and planning to meet them, 



[95; 



would the country have supported our 
executives any less generously? Would 
realization of the real size of the work 
ahead of us have frightened us or 
urged us to greater effort? Well may 
we admire the splendid achievements 
to the credit of our leaders, but con- 
demn we must the weaknesses that 
threaten the value of those very 
achievements. 

Great Britain has done her best 
when visibly confronted with the 
greatest dangers, while several of our 
leaders in Washington have persistent- 
ly advocated the policy of keeping 
from the public the most alarming 
dangers confronting the country un- 
less expressed in the most general 
terms. This has been voiced by cab- 
inet officers, even by President Wilson, 
in such terms as "why alarm the coun- 
try?" Members of Congress have also 
voiced this feeling. As a result, 
America has yet failed to do her ut- 
most and her citizens do not yet real- 
ize the individual obligations and sac- 
rifices they should already be facing. 
Consequently we are still tolerating 
labor disturbances, profiteering, ex- 
travagance and waste, and many other 
evils which are daily increasing the 
loss of life which must be incurred by 
our Allies and ourselves. 

"The war will be decided in the next 
six months" — What extra efforts are 
we making to face that crisis? 

The New York Times of December 
26th editorially points out that greater 
speed in preparation must come by 
pressure from above. Much of the 
speed already achieved has come by 
surging up from below, through insis- 
tence of a relatively small number of 
far-seeing citizens. 

Secretary Redfield in our ninth 
month of war has ordered his subord- 
inates to forget red tape and has pro- 
vided a sort of check against undue 
delay in action and decision. Presi- 

[ 



dent Wilson has recommended that his 
other executives follow this example. 
This is encouraging as far as it goes, 
but it is a clear indication of past 
failure to provide adequately for speed 
and is only one step of many necessary 
to insure speedy progress for the 
future. 

It is said that within 48 hours after 
the Italian defeat one of our great 
departments authorized the closing of 
contracts by telegraph before detailed 
specifications had been worked out. 
It thus required serious defeat to in- 
duce a speed which might have been 
achieved without waiting for such in- 
centive. Washington is often accused 
of playing the game of "passing the 
buck" — in ordinary life sometimes de- 
scribed as "let George do it." Bureau- 
cracy aims to surround itself by checks 
against mistakes so that it leaves clear 
gaps between Departments and avoids 
doing many things which "others may 
do." In war time these conditions 
lead to the greatest possible mistake 
—the mistake of doing nothing, the 
mistake of delay. In such times the 
utmost is none too much, because any- 
thing less inevitably means loss of life 
that might be spared. Our only justi- 
fication in looking backward critically 
is to apply the lessons for the purpose 
of avoiding repetition of mistakes. As 
someone has said "Washington is high- 
ly organized for looking backward but 
not for going forward.". 

It will be observed that the same 
conclusion regarding the fundamental 
weaknesses and the remedy may be 
drawn from each illustration sub- 
mitted in this pamphlet. Our ship- 
building, labor, intelligence, alien, 
transportation, and other problems all 
show the same lack of foresight, the 
same neglect of plan, the lack of pro- 
vision for a planning mechanism, lack 
of adequate information upon which 
to base intelligent planning, lack of 
96] 



adequately informed executives free to 
give daily decisions and enforce speed 
of action unhampered by excessive red 
tape. Many of these lessons have been 
carried through private channels and 
with the most helpful of intentions to 



the ears of those who appeared to have 
authority to apply the remedies. As 
our war preparations, however, in- 
crease in scope and complexity, the 
need for these remedies becomes rapid- 
ly more visible and urgent. 



[9T] 



XVII 

The General Staff 



Various Superior Organizations 

A Supreme General Staff, as some 
would have it, would under the Pres- 
ident be the supreme directing war 
power of the land. Not only military 
control, but everything contributory, 
would come within its scope. It would 
naturally include both military and 
civilian in its personnel. 

Other students of the problem pre- 
fer to divide the directing power, al- 
ways under the President,between two 
coequal bodies, each supreme in its 
field. One would control all military 
activities. The other, roughly speak- 
ing, would provide everything needed 
for the military activities. 

Americans in general will prefer to 
interfere as little as possible with our 
established governmental machine. 
Careful perusal of four following ar- 
ticles, from recent issues' of The New 
Republic, prove the insanity of relying 
upon that machine in all of its present 
and wonderful workings: 

Unity of Command 

"On the day the Germans and Aus- 
trians drove Cadorna's army back 
to the Tagliamento, somebody 
called up Secretary McAdoo on the 
long-distance telephone — he was 
temporarily outside of Washing- 
ton — and secured authorization for 
an immediate loan of $230,000,000 
to Italy. On the same day the War 
Trade Board granted to Italy the 
right to export immediately what- 
ever she needed. Tonnage to trans- 
port it was allotted to her — ton- 
nage which had previously been 
allotted to France to help carry 



abroad that million tons of French 
raw material piled on American 
docks. The news of this assistance,, 
cabled to Rome, is said to have 
aided in maintaining Italian mo- 
rale. It satisfied our demand that 
something be done. Yet it can 
hardly result in any military help 
at the front before the first of De- 
cember. It can do little to assuage 
the disappointment of the Italian 
represenatives in this country who 
for months have requested in vain 
a priority for their materials. And 
if before December first the Ital- 
ians, with British and French help, 
have stemmed the enemy invasion, 
and the heat of battle has returned 
to the western front, the British 
and French armies may suffer for 
the lack of the supplies formerly 
destined for them, and suddenly di- 
verted to other uses as the result 
of a telephone conversation with no 
greater strategic authority than 
the Secretary of the Treasury. 

The sudden grant to Italy of as- 
sistance for which her representa- 
tives in this country have long been 
asking can be construed as an im- 
plicit condemnation of the previous 
refusal, but such an inference is 
not justified. The American gov- 
ernment has been guessing. It has 
to take decisions without being pos- 
sessed of all the information on 
which a wise decision should be 
based. In the case of both the re- 
fusal and the compliance it may or 
may not have been advisable to 
grant priority to the Italian de- 
mands. There were not and are 
not ships enough and munitions 
enough to furnish all the Allies a 



[98] 



clear supremacy on all fronts at the 
same time over any possible attack. 
If the invasion of Italy is stopped, 
it may be stopped because the 
French and British have such a su- 
periority on the western front that 
they are able by counter-demon- 
stration to divert a sufficient num- 
ber of German divisions. Even 
though the Italians had been given 
the priority, the German attack 
might have been made, with appre- 
ciable results and more serious po- 
litical consequences, somewhere on 
the French line. These are all spec- 
ulations, and speculations do not 
count for much in war, especially 
after the event. The essential fact 
is that no single strategic author- 
ity dictated the policy adopted. It 
was the result of a competition of 
wills. Great Britain, France, 
Italy and our own army have all 
been presenting without regulation 
or reserve their maximum claims 
upon our young and overstrained 
organ of war production. We have 
listened, in our eagerness to do 
everything at once, first to one and 
then to another. We have not been 
able to satisfy any. The decisions 
have been reached in detail by sub- 
ordinate officials, and for fluctu- 
ating reasons, rather than as a 
whole by a central strategic author- 
ity whose business is to plan effec- 
tive warfare against the Central 
Powers. The German general staff 
has but to watch our clumsy at- 
tempt at satisfying the conflicting 
maximum demands of all the Allies, 
to pick out the weak place and the 
favorable moment, and then to 
strike suddenly and successfully. 
That is what the German general 
staff has been doing ever since the 
beginning of the war, and that is 
what it will continue to do. 

There is one all-important mat- 



ter of drifting policy which Hin- 
denburg must be closely watching, 
and which may give him a sugges- 
tion for his Winter and Spring 
campaigns. Since it is publicly 
discussed by so reverberating a per- 
son as an ex-President, there can 
be no violation of war secrecy in 
referring to it. How large an army 
shall we raise and send to France? 
If a strategist were deciding the 
question, he would doubtless dis- 
cover first how much the British, 
French and Italian armies will be 
able to do before an American 
force in the field can be made ef- 
fective. He would then ascertain 
how large a supply of munitions 
and food from America they would 
need to reach their maximum ef- 
ficiency. He would subtract the 
tonnage needed to transport these 
supplies from the tonnage available 
for military use in the given time, 
and subtract the necessary sup- 
plies from the supplies we 
could produce in the given time. 
The result would determine the size 
of the expeditionary force and the 
speed with which it must be raised, 
trained, equipped and transported. 
It is a complicated calculation of 
resources as compared to demands. 
It requires for its solution not pat- 
riotism as opposed to pacifism, but 
information, sound judgment and a 
coordinated policy as opposed to 
bluster and politics. Yet no stra- 
tegic authority has, apparently, 
been created to deal with this mat- 
ter. The French, who were the 
first to appeal for American sol- 
diers, have now for a long time 
been complaining of the lack of 
tonnage to transport raw materials 
for their own munitions, and they 
have not secured even approximate 
satisfaction without appealing to 
publicity. The British do not seem 



[99; 



to like the way in which our army's 
demands are interfering with the 
manufacture of their war supplies. 

The prospect of such conflicts 
was foreseen before we entered the 
war. Some one even suggested a 
dark design on the part of Ger- 
many to provoke us into hostility 
for the very purpose of bringing 
about this complication. The Pres- 
ident, in his war speech to Con- 
gress, declared in favor of giving 
to the Allies all needed priority. 
Yet the American Priority Com- 
mittee, because it could not base its 
decision on a general policy mapped 
out in advance by a central Allied 
command, has fallen into the prac- 
tice of giving A-l certificates to 
the orders of our army and navy, 
and A-2 certificates to the orders of 
our Allies. In many cases this 
practice may be justified, but is it 
justified in all? And our vigorous 
ex-President, admitting the uneasi- 
ness on the part of the British and 
French, publicly approves the pol- 
icy on sentimental grounds. If 
Hindenburg, next January or Feb- 
ruary, should select for attacking 
the western front a moment when 
the British and French are insuf- 
ficiently supplied and the American 
army is still insufficiently provided 
with training and equipment, some- 
body may again get Secretary Mc- 
Adoo on the telephone and arrange 
for immediate priority for our Al- 
lies. But then it might be too late. 

This confusion is expressive of 
some radical maladjustment which 
can perhaps be best disentangled 
by analyzing the highly significant 
attitude of our own government. 
Why has it insisted on an Ameri- 
can army, as powerful as possible, 
serving as a unit under an Ameri- 
can general? Why did it refuse, 
and rightly, to let this army serve 

[100] 



under British or French command? 
Why are American soldiers now in 
France rather than in Italy or 
Macedonia? Why has war not been 
declared against Austria, Bulgaria 
and Turkey? It is, fundamentally, 
because there is a distinction be- 
tween American aims in the war 
and the aims of some of our asso- 
ciates, because the government 
wishes to retain independence of 
political action until it has some as- 
surance of unity of political pur- 
pose. Was not the recent behavior 
of America, England and France 
in response to Italian requests for 
stronger support due in great meas- 
ure to the disquietude of all three 
about Italian aims in the Adriatic? 
Will France ever delegate command 
of her armies to any inter-Allied 
authority as long as her chief war 
aim is the reconquest of Alsace- 
Lorraine? Unless the Germans 
and Austrians are by way of being 
completely crushed, will Italy put 
her armies under a control which 
might use them for the reconquest 
of Alsace-Lorraine or even of Bel- 
gium before throwing them to- 
wards Trieste? The Allies have 
separate aims, all of which cannot 
be attained unless Germany is de- 
cisively defeated. But the job of 
defeating her seems to be seriously 
handicapped by the fact that these 
separate aims are themselves the 
obstacles which make impossible a 
genuinely unified command. This is 
the fundamental weakness of the 
coalition. 

This weakness, will not, we be- 
lieve, be wholly remedied by the 
new machinery for obtaining unity 
of command which has recently 
been set up in Paris. The accounts 
which have been cabled to this 
country about the constitution of 
the "war council" are meagre, and 



they cannot be described as wholly 
reassuring. They have organized 
a method of obtaining "common 
counsel" on military affairs but 
hardly unity of command. France, 
Great Britain and Italy have agreed 
to participate in a permanent In- 
ter-Allied Council, the French rep- 
resentative to which will be General 
Foch and the English representa- 
tive General Wilson, but apparently 
this Council will not issue orders 
for the disposition of the trops 
and their manoeuvers. Actual com- 
mand will still be vested in the Gen- 
eral Staff of the several armies and 
the new council will provide a 
means of joint consultation rather 
than a single military authority. It 
will be a Council of War rather 
than a General Staff, and councils 
of war are notoriously poor fight- 
ers. But this is not all. The mili- 
tary section of the council will be 
supplemented by a political section 
composed of two Ministers from 
each country, one of them the 
Prime Minister, which will assem- 
ble twice a month in Paris and 
pass on the military decisions. 
Such a provision for ultimate po- 
litical control is, of course, only the 
proper and necessary result of the 
democratic institution of the sev- 
eral Allied countries, but does it 
not bring the arrangements for 
unity of command back to where 
they started? Does it not necessi- 
tate a further attempt to base 
unity of military policy on unity of 
political purpose? For if the Prime 
Ministers of the Allied countries 
fail to agree upon their political 
objects they will fail to agree upon 
military plans, which, according to 
the very nature of the case, must 
tend to promote one rather than an- 
other political object. The Allies 
can no longer count upon a supe- 

[101 



riority of men, transports and sup- 
plies sufficient to enable all the dif- 
ferent fronts and the political am- 
bitions associated with them to take 
care of themselves. Unity of com- 
mand involves a frugal economy of 
decision, the selection of one policy 
and one front rather than another 
and a joint understandig as to the 
result, which a victory obtained 
upon any one front would exert on 
the whole array of Allied political 
objectives." 

"Down the River" 

'The War College building in Wash- 
ington is three miles 'down the 
river' from the War Department 
building. This apparently insig- 
nificant fact is really one of the 
large facts in the conduct of the 
war. It has consequences, daily, of 
a most far-reaching sort. 

Tn one of the battles on the 
British front, in the beginning of 
the war, two divisions were shot to 
shreds because, simply, an error 
had been made, a slight error, in 
the highly complicated and extraor- 
dinarily difficult technical task of 
issuing clear orders from head- 
quarters. It was a case of "bad 
staff work." The British have been 
compelled to get good staff work 
and they have been compelled to get 
a good General Staff at home and 
they have now reached the point of 
being able to compete on even terms 
with the German General Staff, 
and they have done it under the 
pressure of a public opinion out- 
spoken to a degree which no Amer- 
ican can realize unless he is an 
habitual reader of the British news- 
papers and magazines. 

The point of departure, the 
point of start, in an appreciation 
of the War Department is clearly 



the General Staff, of which the War 
College is a part. And here it is 
most gratifying to be able to begin 
by saying that, in this matter, in 
the matter of preserving the powers 
and the possibilities of the Gen- 
eral Staff, which has to be the 
army's calculating brain, Mr. New- 
ton D. Baker has performed an act 
entitling him to thunders of ap- 
plause, which, however, because of 
our general lack of interest in the 
essentials of war, he has not gen- 
erally got. That act of his has 
passed very widely unregarded. 
But it should always be remem- 
bered for him. It was a great act, 
really worthy to be called historic. 
Congress, in the National De- 
fense law of last year, used lan- 
guage which might easily have 
been construed, and which was by. 
many people actually construed, to 
cripple the General Staff. Congress, 
by nature, is inclined toward a 
strengthening of the various non- 
staff bureaus of the War Depart- 
ment, such as the Quartermaster 
General's office, the Adjutant Gen- 
eral's office, the Judge Advocate 
General's office, the Ordnance office, 
the Inspector General's office, the 
Signal Corps office, the Engineer's 
office, and so on; and it is by nature 
inclined to weaken the General 
Staff or, at any rate, to push it to 
one side. There is a good reason. 
The bureaus, many of them, deal 
with things in which Congress is 
vastly interested, such as the plac- 
ing of people and the placing of 
contracts. The severely intellectual 
pursuits of the General Staff do 
not thrill Congress and, moreover, 
they tend to bring a new impersonal 
technical influence to bear upon 
established personal bureau routine. 
Certain bureau chiefs in the past 
have known very well how to charm 

[102] 



Congress with the bureau idea and 
how to leave it lukewarm about 
the staff idea. 

There was once an Adjutant Gen- 
eral who was magnificent at this 
sort of politics. He was a busy 
man, but if Congressman Smith 
wanted to know did his great- 
great-great grandfather fight at 
the Battle of Bennington, nothing 
interfered with finding that out. 
The inquirer, if he was a Congress- 
man or a Senator, was always put, 
by orders, straight on the Gener- 
al's phone and"//' said the General, 
"I will find out." A clerk labo- 
riously did. And then, a few days 
later, the Congressman, back on 
the phone, heard the General say: 
"1 have found out that your great- 
great-great-grandfather did indeed 
fight at the Battle of Bennington, 
most heroically. You are indeed a 
Son of the American Revolution. 
And I am sending you all the pa- 
pers myself." Decades of such 
amenities, decades of acquain- 
tanceships and favors, built up for 
the bureaus a tremendous Congres- 
sional strength, which still largely 
continues. And therefore, even in 
the National Defense act, in the 
course of ostensibly, and, in many 
respects, actually, improving our 
military organization. Congress 
made for itself an opportunity to 
strike at the General Staff and it 
did so most particularly in a sec- 
tion containing the words "Here- 
after members of the General Staff 
Corps shall not be permitted to as- 
sume or engage in work of an ad- 
ministrative nature that pertains 
to established Bureaus." 

This section at once became the 
theme of a very able legal opinion 
by General Crowder, Judge-Advo- 
cate General. If his views had been 
accepted by Mr. Baker (and he is 



Mr. Baker's legal military adviser), 
we should now have only the phan- 
tom of a General Staff. General 
Crowder held that the General Staff 
could indeed give itself to the 
"study of military problems" and 
to "the preparation of plans for 
the national defense" and to "in- 
vestigating and reporting upon the 
efficiency and state of preparedness 
of the military forces of the United 
States for service in peace or war." 
But the original General Staff law 
of 1903, passed under the influence 
of Elihu Root, had also said that 
the officers of the General Staff 
should "render professional aid and 
assistance to the Secretary of War" 
and should act as his "agents" in 
the delicate but most necessary task 
of "informing and coordinating the 
action of all the different officers 
who are subject, under the terms 
of this act, to the supervision of the 
Chief of Staff." And who were 
those officers? The law of 1903 
named them in defining the powers 
of the Chief of Staff. It said: 

"The Chief of Staff, under the 
direction of the President or of 
the Secretary of War, shall have 
supervision of all troops of the line 
and of the Adjutant General's, In- 
spector General's, Judge Advo- 
cate's, Quartermaster's, Subsis- 
tence, Medical, Pay, and Ordnance 
Departments, the Corps of Engi- 
neers, and the Signal Corps." The 
Chief of Staff was to have "super- 
vision" of all of them. But what 
is "supervision"? What is "super- 
vision" when Congress, subsequent- 
ly, in the National Defense law, has 
said that the officers of the Gener- 
al Staff, of whom the Chief of 
Staff is one, shall not, in supervis- 
ing, do any administering? 

General Crowder was quite clear 
about it. He said: 

[103 



"Unmistakably, Congress has 
sought to preserve untouched the 
special jurisdiction of each of the 
several bureaus." "It is the effect 
of the language, and must there- 
fore have been the purpose, of the 
act, to re-establish the relation of 
the several bureau chiefs as special 
aids and advisors to the Secretary 
of War, on matters which fall with- 
in their special jurisdiction, unin- 
terfered ivith by any outside 
agency." "In all matters falling 
within the special jurisdiction of 
the several bureaus, Congress has 
said in effect that the views of the 
particular bureau chiefs shall gov- 
ern the Secretary, so far as his own 
judgment is to be advised." And 
if there should be any "zones of un- 
certainty" between the powers of 
the bureaus and the powers of the 
General Staff, "the statute estab- 
lishes for us a guiding rule, which 
is that in case of doubt the pre- 
sumption is conclusive against the 
General Staff." Such was the spirit 
of General Crowder's opinion, the 
spirit of an unusually able and 
highly sincere and hardworking 
and patriotic bureau chief. 

Nevertheless the experience of 
the whole world in this war turns 
out to be that it is necessary to 
have a strong and really powerful 
General Staff. Mr. Baker essential- 
ly overruled General Crowder's 
opinion. There are times, one sees, 
when it is not a bad thing at all 
to have a lawyer for Secretary of 
War. A layman might have been 
paralyzed by the spectacle of the 
vivid wording of the National De- 
fense law and of the opinion of the 
Judge-Advocate General. Mr. Ba- 
ker looked at that torrent, observed 
sundry cakes of floating ice on it, 
and leaped on them lightly from 
shore to shore with the General 



Staff safe in his arms. It was an 
agile performance. 

Mr. Baker reviewed the origin of 
the General Staff. He found that 
it was the intent of Elihu Root, 
"one of the great Secretaries of 
War of modern times," to give to 
the Chief of Staff a power of super- 
vision really effective. He found 
that Elihu Root had said that he 
was providing for a control to be 
exercised over the whole military- 
arm of the government "through a 
single military expert of high 
rank." He found that such also 
was the legislative intent of the 
words that Congress was brought 
to use in the law of 1903. And the 
National Defense law of 1916 did 
not expressly repeal the law of 
1903. Therefore all that remained 
was to define the word "administra- 
tive." Congress seemed to wish to 
prevent the General Staff from be- 
coming too "administrative." Well, 
Elihu Root himself, strong as he 
was for a strong General Staff, 
never wanted the General Staff to 
be "administrative" at all. He 
said so, expressly. The General 
Staff is to "inform" and "coordin- 
ate" and "supervise." That is all. 
But that is enough. For how can 
it "inform" and "coordinate" and 
"supervise" the bureaus unless it 
goes into them deeply enough to 
equip itself with the "qualifying 
information"? (A splendid point 
that.) And therefore "it is my 
opinion that it is not only appro- 
priate but necessary for the Chief 
of the General Staff to pursue, with 
as great detail as his judgment dic- 
tates, the execution of policies 
throughout the several bureaus." 
And, in short, "the policy of the 
War Department will remain as 
before." 

By that decision Mr. Baker took 

[104] 



us into the war with a General Staff 
still capable, by law, in principle, 
of being a General Staff, fully. It 
was an act of superb insight and 
courage, comparable to the act per- 
formed by Lloyd George when he 
over-ruled the gun-policy of the 
British War Office, and bought 
bigger guns and more guns than 
the War Office wanted, and was, 
by present military consent, utterly 
right. 

So the principle stands. But the 
practice is a rather different thing. 
Here the first fact is that stretch 
of three miles between the War De- 
partment and the War College, be- 
tween the body of the army and the 
bulk of its "informing" and "co- 
ordinating" and "supervising" 
brain. The results are strange. 

The Chief of Staff, to begin with, 
is separated from most of his staff. 
He sits in the War Department. 
Four of the six committees into 
which the General Staff is divided 
are resident in the War College. 
The picture of the Chief of Staff 
sitting in the midst of his staff de- 
vising great plans is an imaginary 
picture. It does not happen. In 
fact, the Chief of Staff may express 
an opinion on a certain highly im- 
portant matter and shortly after- 
wards be handed an opinion from 
his own War College in the directly 
contrary sense. 

The next result is that the task 
of doing any effective personal 
friendly "supervising" of the ex- 
ecution of policies recommended 
from the War College becomes 
peculiarly difficult. The War Col- 
lege man who has recommended 
something, after studying it, can- 
not readily follow it, after its ac- 
ceptance, into the bureau which is 
operating it and make friends there 
and help it along with fresh sug- 






gestions out of his studies. It 
may be working well. It may be 
working badly. His faculties for 
knowing, and for helping, become 
very poor. 

The third result is more serious 
still. Officers in the War Depart- 
ment in their several bureaus are 
every day deciding things which 
they know ought, in principle, to 
be studied by the General Staff, 
but "Send it 'down the river'"? 
Never. How do we know when we'd 
get it back? It's a beastly out-of- 
the-way place, and it's two miles 
by carrier-pigeon, and we haven't 
any carrier-pigeons, and it's three 
miles by trolley and foot, and it 
takes too long, and this stuff would 
go to some fellow we don't know, 
and he might sit on it for weeks, 
and let's do it ourselves right here." 
And they do it themselves right 
there. They talk about "down the 
river" as if it were a morgue. 

And the officers "down the river" 
have behaved as if they more or less 
agreed with them. When the war 
broke out, they made a sort of mass 
rush to try to get into the field. 
General Kuhn, who was head of 
the War College, and in whose 
mind, if anywhere, the totality of 
our war plans might be assumed 
to lie, went as soon as possible 
and took command of an individual 
training-camp. Of the forty-two 
officers who were his colleagues on 
the General Staff on April 24th of 
this year, twenty-eight have now 
vanished. Being "the brain of the 
army" seemed to them to be a good 
job to leave — a point of view that 
might provide considerable aston- 
ishment to Ludendorff. The Ger- 
man General Staff is a terrifically 
immediate thing in its impact on 
the war. Our General Staff is -still 
regarded by our own officers as a 

[ 



remote thing. And the distance 
from the War Department to the 
War College is a symbol of that 
remoteness. 

Out of such a situation, in prac- 
tice, one might expect great delays 
in comprehensive planning and 
great delays also in really compre- 
hensive executing. Subsequent ar- 
ticles will show that we get them." 
William Hard 

The Brain of the Army 

He is President of the Panama Rail- 
road, responsible head of the 
Bureau of Insular Affairs, of the 
Philippine Commission, and of the 
government of Porto Rico. He is 
Chairman of the Council of 
National Defense. But let us think 
of him only as Secretary of War. 
Is there any other executive in the 
world who at this moment is in im- 
mediate charge of so many impor- 
tant undertakings? President Wil- 
son lays out the route of the car 
and makes telling comments on the 
landscape. Mr. Baker holds the 
wheel and directs the mechanician. 
The French and British Ministers 
of War are now roaring along the 
course in finely adjusted racers, 
1918 model. They are just keep- 
ing pace with Hindenburg. Mr. 
Baker started in an antique run- 
about, and as he travels he has to 
tinker it, part by part, into some- 
thing which can go fast and far. 
He cannot stop by the roadside and 
rebuild at leisure. No one can tell 
how soon the race will depend large- 
ly on him. His friends understand 
that he cannot remodel everything 
at once, but they know how pressing 
is the necessity both for thorough- 
ness and for speed. They know 
that six months from now, if any- 
thing important goes wrong, his 
105] 



enemies will blame him for it. And 
irrespective of that, everything im- 
portant must go right. 

Last week Mr. Hard showed that 
Mr. Baker had made a good begin- 
ning by putting the brain of the 
army, the General Staff, where it 
belongs, at the head of the army. 
But he also showed that somehow 
or other the Staff has not made 
close connection with the nervous 
system. It seems to be so remote 
that hands and feet often jerk 
along independently. Is there any- 
thing else the matter, except that 
the War College is three miles 
"down the river"? No one can 
know much about such a question 
without having access to all the 
information and experience tumb- 
ling in on Mr. Baker, and more too. 
It might be suggestive, however, to 
compare the American organization 
with those of our Allies, in certain 
of the features information about 
which is accessible in published 
reports. 

The first duty of the American 
Chief of Staff under the law is to 
be military advisor to the Secretary 
of War. He can and does advise 
on large matters, but he is a busy 
man, he must often be away from 
his office, and like most executives, 
he cannot be cognizant of all details 
without consulting his subordinates. 
Only a few of these are in the War 
Department building. Yet Secre- 
tary Baker's need for detailed mili- 
tary information is constant and 
pressing. Many who consult him 
must have prompt and accurate de- 
cisions. Mr. Baker's own time 
would be saved if there were trust- 
worthy and informed military ad- 
visers at his elbow. Suppose the 
American Secretary of War, like 
most of the European War Minis- 
ters, had a personal military staff, 

[106] 



composed of trained officers who 
had access to every paper and every 
man in the War Office. They could 
be animated encyclopedias for him, 
they might even at times catch the 
General Staff in a delay or a mis- 
take. They could help him as no 
other officer could who has other 
duties besides that of gathering in- 
formation for the Secretary's 
personal use. 

The main duty of our General 
Staff is to plan and to coordinate 
and supervise the work of the line 
and bureaus of the army. It 
should, according to the ruling of 
Secretary Baker, "pursue the exe- 
cution of policy through the vari- 
ous bureaus." The European Staffs 
have approximately the same func- 
tions. But a study of the govern- 
ments, notably in England and 
France, shows that the Staffs are 
equipped in a different way for all 
these duties. 

In the first place, the Chief of 
Staff of almost any of our Allies 
is a member of the supreme war 
council — the body which roughly 
corresponds to our Council of Na- 
tional Defense. The European 
councils contain the men who have 
the information and authority to 
decide the large questions of policy, 
and they do decide these questions. 
Our Council of National Defense as 
established by law does not contain 
the Secretary of State, the Secre- 
tary of the Treasury, the chairman 
of the Shipping Board, the chair- 
man of the War Trade Board or 
the Food Administrator. We have 
no executive officer of any sort in 
control of the manufacture of all 
munitions and supplies. The Coun- 
cil has recently developed into a 
conference by the inclusion of Mr. 
McAdoo, Mr. Hoover and Mr. Hur- 
ley. It merely confers, however; 



it does not decide anything as a 
body. That may be because of the 
absence of the President (the 
Premier of England and the Pres- 
ident of France are members of the 
respective councils). At any rate, 
because the typical European coun- 
cil decides, and because the Chief 
of Staff is a member of it, he has 
real authority in the army. He 
can deliver the decisions of the 
council to the commanders in the 
field. He can plan the work of his 
own staff. 

It is different with us. When 
General Pershing thinks of our 
Chief of Staff, he thinks of an in- 
dividual who has no connection 
with any of the other war bodies. 
General Bliss never confers, for in- 
stance, with Mr. Hurley of the 
Shipping Board, and none of his 
subordinates ever does. When 
Pershing wants to find out how 
many troops he can have by a cer- 
tain date he has to refer to a pro- 
gram made up in the War Depart- 
ment. He cannot be sure whether 
any one ever asked the Shipping 
Board upon what expectation of 
transports and supply ships that 
program is based. He cannot be 
sure whether the program for the 
requisite munitions has taken into 
account the steel that must be used 
for building those ships. He can- 
not be sure that either program 
has been checked up with the labor 
supply. If circumstances arise 
which must alter the program, the 
chances are that nobody knows it, 
or that nobody remembers to tell 
everybody concerned until the 
physical scarcity of ships or labor 
obtrudes itself. The remoteness of 
the General Staff from the conduct 
of the war naturally disinclines 
the army to regard it as other than 
an aloof and secret body which 

[107] 



may be making perfect plans for 
some imaginary invasion of Ba- 
luchistan, but is not to be con- 
sulted about large, immediate prob- 
lems. 

In the second place, the European 
General Staffs present a strong 
front to the War Office. They have 
committees to study questions of 
organization, equipment, instruc- 
tion, transportation and operation 
of the forces. These committees, 
under the Chief of Staff, make the 
decisions in military policy. The 
policies are then carried out in de- 
tail by the various bureau chiefs. 
There is, for instance, a Chief of 
Artillery who is responsible for the 
organization and instruction of the 
artillery branch and for the distri- 
bution of supplies to it. There is 
attached to him, among others, a 
member of the General Staff, who 
keeps him informed about the ar- 
tillery policy of the Staff, and keeps 
the Staff informed about the work 
and needs of the Chief of Artillery. 
There are similar Chiefs of Infan- 
try, Signal Corps, Engineers and 
so on, and each chief is linked with 
the General Staff by a Staff officer. 

But no such simple and logical 
process goes on in our army. Our 
Staff, to be sure, has its commit- 
tees. We have Chiefs of Signal 
Corps, Engineers and Coast Artil- 
lery. But no General Staff officers 
are attached to them. We have no 
chiefs of the main branches of the 
service — Infantry, Cavalry and 
Field Artillery. We have a Chief 
of Ordnance, who is in charge of 
designing, purchasing and distrib- 
uting guns and ammunition. But 
he is not in charge of the artillery's 
organization and training. We have 
a Quartermaster-General, in charge 
of buying and distributing to 
everybody general supplies and 



equipment. The executive work of 
the three main branches of the 
service is mostly done by the Ad- 
jutant-General — an officer who 
nominally is appointed to preside 
over the records. No representative 
of the General Staff is attached to 
the Chief of Ordnance, the Quar- 
termaster-General or the Adjutant- 
General. Just as the War College 
is physically remote from the War 
Department, so the General Staff 
is mentally remote from the bureau 
and division heads. 

One man is supposed, in our sys- 
tem, to be the channel for instruc- 
tions from the Chief of Staff to the 
rest of the army — the Adjutant- 
General. He existed before the 
General Staff was created, and at 
times has held great administra- 
tive power. The tradition of that 
power still lingers about the War 
Department. The decisions of the 
Chief of Staff are transmitted to 
the Adjutant-General for distribu- 
tion to the line and bureau chiefs. 
Questions arising within the line or 
the bureaus involving general pol- 
icy are sent in to the Adjutant- 
General, and it is within his dis- 
cretion either to pass them up to 
the Chief of Staff or to decide them 
himself. Perhaps it is this uncer- 
tainty in the delegation of author- 
ity that causes some of the con- 
fusion, both in his office and else- 
where. 

In the European system the Gen- 
eral Staff is equipped to do the ma- 
jor planning, the coordinating and 
the following up. The bureau 
chiefs are equipped to do the work 
of executive detail — that sort of 
work which Congress felt a vague 
need of keeping away from our 
General Staff when it passed the 
National Defense Act of 1916. But 
in our system, while the General 

[108] 



Staff may or may not do the plan- 
ning, it cannot do the coordinating 
or the following up without cutting 
across the work of the Adjutant- 
General or of one of the bureau 
chiefs. On the other hand, it fre- 
quently attempts to do detailed 
work which might better be done 
by an executive trained in his spe- 
cial job. 

Two instances will make this 
clear. The General Staff makes a 
decision, let us say, to change the 
number of cavalry units from 17 
to 27. The Quartermaster Corps 
hears of this change and immedi- 
ately alters its buying to suit 27 
units. But the Ordnance Bureau 
does not take note of the decision 
for weeks, and goes on supplying 17. 
Such things have happened. Whose 
fault is it? The law says the Gen- 
eral Staff must coordinate the bu- 
reaus, and Secretary Baker writes 
that it must "pursue the execution 
of policy through the various bu- 
reaus." But the General Staff has 
an alibi. It has no direct connec- 
tion with either the Ordnance Bu- 
reau or the Quartermaster Corps. 
It does not even contain in its 
membership a representative of any 
of the purchasing bureaus. It no- 
tifies the Adjutant-General of its 
decision. It can do no more. 

The other instance is of a con- 
trary nature. Should promotions 
be decided by seniority or selection, 
and should the practice differ in 
this respect at home and abroad? 
A ruling was the duty of the Gen- 
eral Staff. But the drawing up of 
the complicated regulations was the 
duty of a specialized executive 
chief. Nevertheless the War Col- 
lege painfully and at length worked 
out a series of regulations — which 
proved to be so imperfect that they 
had to be revised several times by 



the Adjutant-General's office. It is 
this sort of thing which makes of- 
ficers hesitant to send questions 
"down the river." It explains why 
many divisions never hear of the 
General Staff except when it issues 
orders that no officer may wear a 
"Sam Brown belt" while in Amer- 
ica, or that Second Lieutenants 
shall wear a gilt bar on the 
shoulder. 

It would be a mistake, of course, 
slavishly to follow any European 
example. Perhaps our government 
can devise a new and better sys- 
tem. But it is interesting to see 
how well fitted the European organ- 
izations are to give scope to the 
General Staff for the performance 
of the very duties which our Gen- 
eral Staff is by law directed to per- 
form. We may remember, too, that 
England and France are democra- 
cies, that their armies are worthy 
of emulation, and that the Ameri- 
can army is fighting in France be- 
side them. The great and notice- 
able difference, however, between 
our War Department and both the 
British and French War Ministers 
is in the method of purchasing mu- 
nitions. The French and British 
have both been forced, during the 
war, to take this duty away from 
the artillery chief and place it in a 
separate ministry. Neither wished 
to do so ; they were forced to do so 
by the inadequacy of the military 
arm to handle immense business 
problems. Both nations are now 
convinced that if the military 
branch can satisfactorily distrib- 
ute materials, without buying them, 
its capacity will be taxed to the ut- 
most. Perhaps our problem is sim- 
pler than theirs. Perhaps we have 
better ordnance chiefs. Perhaps 
the Ordnance Bureau is now doing 



well enough. That subject must be 
discussed in another article." 

George Soule. 

Retarding the Allies 

'Our persistent refusal to organize 
ourselves into a unity of command 
for the purchasing of munitions of 
war is very bad for the armies of 
the Allies, just as it is very bad for 
our own army. 

All next Spring, all next Summer, 
the Allies will shelter us. We have 
done our best, as individuals. Not 
one man out of a hundred at Wash- 
ington among our chief administra- 
tors but has given his work-time, 
his play-time, his sleep-time, his 
last of thought, his last of health, 
at demand, to any duty for this 
war. I have seen men come to 
Washington heavy with personal 
ambitions of private life and I 
have seen them rise released to 
a selflessness, to a willingness to 
be subordinated, to be sacrificed, 
which makes them worthy, almost, 
to be where they are — standing be- 
hind our soldiers. They have la- 
bored, these men, these officials old 
and new, usually with excellent 
minds, often with minds of positive- 
ly splendid power, to their utmost. 
Nevertheless let us look at our case 
as clearly as the Germans look at it. 

The Germans know that not for 
a moment in any month of next 
year shall we be able to be as much 
as ten per cent of the genuine fully 
trained, fully equipped, fighting- 
line effectiveness thrown up against 
them on the frontier of democratic 
civilization between the Adriatic 
and the English Channel. Not ten 
per cent of it, in the immediate 
military sense. The Germans know 
this. We really know it. Let us 
really admit it, and act on it. 



[109] 



We must make every effort to get 
supplies into the hands of the Allied 
armies as smoothly, as steadily, as 
flowingly, as possible. We shall 
not starve our own army, or even 
in any slightest way stint it. We 
cannot train enough men in two 
years to consume our industrial re- 
sources. We have a surplus. It 
is for us to see that the Allies get 
that surplus with the minimum of 
daily delay and with the maximum 
of daily rapidity. We must do it, 
and we want to do it. 

But we cannot do it, we cannot 
conceivably do it, with our present 
organization. The minimum of de- 
lay, the maximum of rapidity, every 
twenty-four hours, means unity. 
And our present organization is an 
outrage against unity. 

For look at it. In our War De- 
partment we have those well known 
separate purchasing divisions 
(Quartermaster, Ordnance, and so 
on) which, being separate, have to 
be "coordinated." Nobody at Wash- 
ington denies the need of getting up 
early in the morning and "coordin- 
ating" all day long. George Porter, 
head of the Section on Cooperation 
with States in the Council of Na- 
tional Defense, has offered a re- 
ward to anybody who can think up 
a word that will mean "coordinate" 
and that will not bore everybody 
sick. The first thing that "coordi- 
nates" the purchasing divisions in 
the War Department is the General 
Staff. 

Well, the General Staff is indeed 
a "coordinating" body. It must 
"coordinate" the War Department 
for military purposes. The General 
Staff is a vital thing, an indispen- 
sable thing, in the matter of "co- 
ordinating" the War Department 
for military purposes, for fighting. 
But what sort of thing is it in the 

[110] 



matter of "coordinating" the War 
Department for purchasing pur- 
poses, for industrial purposes, for 
purposes having to do with factor- 
ies and the control of factories 
and the control of the capital 
and of the labor in factories? 
Who are on the General Staff? 
Soldiers. Soldiers taken from the 
"line." Rightly. They are to be 
the army's military brain. They 
have come from army-posts. They 
have studied troops. That is what 
they know. That is what they are 
for. Their knowledge of industry, 
their knowledge of the feelings of 
the people in industry, is, for the 
most part, nil. 

One of our most famous generals 
opened an official conference last 
year on the subject of Labor on 
American Railways by remarking, 
most interestingly: "I am against 
trade-unions." It was really too 
bad that John Ruskin could not 
have materialized out of his grave 
at that moment to say: "And I 
wish to remind you that I am 
against all locomotives, steam, elec- 
tric, internal -combustion, and 
other." One of the best ways to 
try to get a Bolsheviki revolution in 
this country would be to allow our 
generals to become important in the 
control of industry. And the pur- 
chasing of munitions, in the end, 
here as in Britain and as in France, 
is nothing less than the control of 
industry, of all basic industry. 

Therefore the General Staff, as 
constituted, being a military brain 
and not an industrial brain, is in- 
capable of really "coordinating" 
and accelerating the War Depart- 
ment's purchasing divisions; and 
therefore, for this reason, as well 
as for other reasons, we now have 
a new "coordinating" body within 
the War Department — the "War 



Council" — consisting of certain bu- 
reau-chiefs and ex-bureau-chiefs 
among whom there are men, like 
General Sharpe and General Cro- 
zier, who have had recent purchas- 
ing experience. 

It is too soon to be sure just what 
this new "War Council" can do. 
One thing, though, may be said 
about it safely. Part of its pur- 
pose is to take certain people and 
"kick them up politely to the 
Lords." The difference is that 
when you kick Sir Edward Grey 
up into being Lord Grey, you are 
through with him. We are not 
through with General Sharpe. 
Under General Sharpe, acting as 
Quartermaster-General, many of our 
soldiers shivered and died in thin 
khaki. General Sharpe's purchas- 
ing division did not succeed in giv- 
ing them woolens. For such fail- 
ures General Sharpe is held respon- 
sible, rightly or wrongly, within the 
War Department as well as outside 
it ; and he is removed from acting as 
Quartermaster-General ; and Gen- 
eral Goethals is asked to act as 
Quartermaster-General; but Gener- 
al Sharpe is asked to sit among the 
five men who are to "coordinate" 
General Goethals. What are Gen- 
eral Sharpe's chances, what are 
General Crozier's chances at "co- 
ordinating" General Goethals? 
Just about what Mr. Denman's 
were. 

There is only one sort of "co- 
ordinating" body worth while in 
the internal organization of Wash- 
ington. This sort of "coordinating" 
body must have two characteristics. 
It must consist of the top man, the 
strongest men, in its field; and it 
must have the power not merely to 
nag but to order, to compel, out- 
right and forthwith. There is no 
such "coordinating" body in all 

[ill] 



Washington. That is why the word 
"coordinate" is now a stench in the 
nostrils of the town. 

But we are not yet finished with 
"coordinating" our purchasing di- 
visions. We now come to the War 
Industries Board. And we come to 
the Purchasing Commission within 
the War Industries Board. Let us 
follow the Allies to this Purchasing 
Commission, from which they get 
their permits for purchases in this 
country. 

They wish to buy, let us say, an 
important finished product. In the 
matter of the raw material out of 
which that product is to be made, 
they see Mr. Baruch. In the mat- 
ter of the product itself, they see 
Mr. Brookings. Now Mr. Brook- 
ings is a very fine person, of high 
intelligence; but, by virtually uni- 
versal consent, he lacks the one 
thing a man in his present position 
must especially and conspicuously 
have. He lacks speed. He is slow 
at decisions. People in the War De- 
partment complain that they send 
things over to him and he keeps 
them, and then keeps them some 
more, and then may return them 
with the observation that he has 
nothing to suggest. He is a desir- 
able man for some place in the 
government. But it is not given even 
to desirable men that they should 
have all desirable qualities fitting 
them for all places. Flatly, by con- 
sent of virtually all persons who deal 
with him, Mr. Brookings does not 
fit the Purchasing Commission : be- 
cause our purchases must be made 
with speed and Mr. Brookings hap- 
pens to be quite without speed. 

But what can be done about it? 
Observe! The Purchasing Com- 
mission has no head. It consists 
of Mr. Baruch, Mr. Brookings and 
Judge Lovett. They are equals. 



No one of them can dismiss either 
of the others. 

So we must go higher. The 
Purchasing Commission is part of 
the War Industries Board, and Mr. 
Willard is chairman of the War 
Industries Board. Perhaps he could 
make a change? Not at all. He 
is merely the "chairman" of a 
"board." Mr. Brookings is not his 
subordinate. He is really his col- 
league. 

So we must go higher still. The 
War Industries Board reports to 
the Council of National Defense. 
Perhaps the six cabinet members 
who constitute the Council could 
make a change? Perhaps. But 
only very perhaps. Mr. Brookings 
was appointed by the President 
himself. And what does that mean ? 

It means that under Mr. Baker, 
who is chairman of the Council of 
National Defense, and under Mr. 
Willard, who is chairman of the 
War Industries Board, and within 
the Purchasing Commission, three 
layers from the top, we have a pres- 
idential appointee, whom nobody 
will or can pick out and transplant 
until the President himself looks 
and learns and is informed and 
speaks. 

Is this good organization? Is 
this the way to lighten the burdens 
of the President? Is this unity 
Unity requires that every field of 
general action, such as ships, such 
as munitions, such as food, shall 
have a single head, with power to 
control all other men in that field. 
We have this single head in food. 
We begin to have something like it 
in ships. We have nothing like it 
in munitions. 

For let us proceed in company 
with the Allies. Mr. Brookings is 
about to decide whether or not to 
allow the Allies to use certain of 

[112] 



our factories. But he must find 
out whether or not our War Depart- 
ment wants those factories. He 
must consult, for instance, our 
Chief of Ordnance. Our Chief of 
Ordnance may arrive at a certain 
view. Mr. Brookings may arrive 
at a certain other view, or may re- 
main in doubt. Then we may have 
a meeting of the whole War Indus- 
tries Board. 

But the War Industries Board, 
even as a whole, has no real right 
to coerce its own internal Purchas- 
ing Commission; and it most cer- 
tainly has no real right to coerce 
the Chief of Ordnance. Therefore 
the decision, in important disputed 
cases, lags. In one such case it has 
been lagging now for several weeks. 
Everybody concerned has known all 
the facts. Nobody concerned has 
been able to say "Absolutely, Yes" 
or "Absolutely, No." 

But we proceed again. The de- 
cision has been reached. The Pur- 
chasing Commission has author- 
ized a purchase for the Allies. And 
Judge Lovett, as head of "priority" 
within the Purchasing Commission, 
gives that purchase a "priority 
order." Simultaneously the pur- 
chasing divisions in the War De- 
partment are issuing thousands of 
"priority orders" on purchases for 
us, purchases important, purchases 
unimportant. All these purchases, 
the important ones and the unim- 
portant ones together, start from 
their factories and rush toward 
their destinations on equal terms. 
Sawdust to be used in the packing 
of ice for our army in France may 
have just as good a chance of get- 
ting to the seaboard as the material 
for explosives for the Allied guns. 
And we will find space on our ships 
for all sorts of strange shipments, 
remotely useful, when things of in- 



stant use for the French Army are 
lying on the docks. 

Why? Because we persistently 
refuse to unify. We prefer to "co- 
ordinate." 

Have we not had about enough of 
it? It makes our ablest men look 
like fools. Perhaps Mr. Brookings is 
not so indecisive as people in the 
War Department think he is. He 
is working in the midst of an in- 
decisive system. If he were work- 
ing within a unified system, he 
might turn out to be a perfectly 
effective man. For unity brings 
responsibility, and it brings ur- 
gency, and it brings the necessity 
for action. 

Imagine all these purchases that 
we have mentioned, and all these 
priorities, massed under one man. 
The War Industries Board is his 
General Staff, an industrial General 
Staff, an industrial brain. It is 
the beginnings of it. The present 
purchasing divisions in the Army 
Department become subordinate, 
bodily, directly, to this one man. 
Their present chiefs become his 
assistants. He is our Head of War 
Supplies. He is not the head of a 
fragment, the submerged head of a 
dislocated fragment, of our War 
Supplies. He stands out. He may 
report to the President ; or he may, 
as some people suggest, report to 
Mr. Baker. In either case, he will 
be the Organizer and the Controller 
of American War Industry; and 
there will fall on him the same 
glare of public interest and of pub- 
lic demand that now falls on Mr. 
Hoover and on Mr. Hurley. If Mr. 
Brookings then is found to be slow, 
this man, for self-preservation, will 
let him out, just eaxctly as Mr. 
Hurley has let out Admiral Capps 



and Admiral Harris. But now? 
Who now is responsible for Mr. 
Brookings? The President. The 
Chairman of the Council of Nation- 
al Defense. The five other members 
of the Council of National Defense. 
The Chairman of the War Indus- 
tries Board. Totaling, in practice, 
nobody. 

So we get slowed. And so the 
Allies get slowed. And the War 
Industries Board goes on "coordi- 
nating" the War Department with a 
chairman who has no real right even 
to "coordinate" the Board. And the 
General Staff of the Army goes on 
"coordinating" the purchasing di- 
visions of the War Department 
with a brain belonging to the army- 
post and the field of battle. And 
the new "War Council" will begin 
to "coordinate" a new lot of bureau 
chiefs, chosen for reputed strength, 
with the help of a complement of 
ex-bureau chiefs, discarded for re- 
puted weakness. And Mr. Baker 
and Mr. Wilson, in the midst of this 
cloud of petty executives and palav- 
ering "coordinators," disappear to 
Olympus. And we get some speed. 
We get much speed. But we do not 
get top speed. We do not get any- 
thing like top speed. And just over 
the horizon is the portal to which 
every Ally, in its turn, has come, 
the portal bearing the famous words 
Lloyd George has repeated to us, 
words which, if they flash out there 
when we arrive, are the death war- 
rant to our form of democratic 
government in this world: "Too 
Late." Too Feeble and Too Late. 
The future will then be either to 
Hohenzollerns or to Bolsheviki. 
Constitutional irresolute democracy 
will have come to its end." 

William Hard. 



[113] 



XVIII 

No More Half-Measures 

The remedy is simple in principle. At first it 
seems undemocratic because it involves dictator- 
ship, undisputed authority, the mechanism to en- 
force command, and perforce the wherewithal 
to command intelligently. 

Democracy should not make itself an enemy 
of efficiency. On the contrary, efficiency should 
be its legitimate slave in order that the human 
being, single and collectively, may rise to the 
highest safety and opportunity. Democratic 
dictatorship therefore merely means concentrated 
authority controlled and approved by the people. 
Our President has already concentrated power 
unequalled in this world. We do not fear the 
President. In fact for years the nation has been 
steadily granting him increased powers. But 
we have not required the President to use his 
great powers with adequate effectiveness even in 
peace times. 

War is the speedy application of concentrated 
power. And we are leaving our President par- 
tially helpless — history will place the blame. 

Congress by cooperating continuingly (not 
spasmodically, considering the deed accom- 
plished) can, first, provide legislation correct in 
principle, second, refine and expand it intelli- 
gently. 

Congress might well appoint a permanent 
Congressional committee to include some of its 
ablest constructive, far-seeing and organizing 
minds. With a minimum of interference and a 
maximum of helpfulness the Committee would 

[114] 



receive periodical reports from the leading execu- 
tive officials outlining plans, progress and defi- 
ciencies. With such a steady supply of infor- 
mation Congress would be in an excellent 
position to legislate most constructively to fill 
the gaps, to strengthen and revise existing laws 
wherever necessary. 



1I5J 



The Public Is Discovering : 

The President has not always had available the 
information necessary to indicate what needed 
his foremost action and support in: 

a. Forming adequate organization plans. 

b. Obtaining precedence for the most pressing 
needs, under their fluctuating relationship month 
by month. 

c. Weighing the future and anticipating needs 
and developments. 

d. Insuring against every possible neglect or 
miscarriage of decision, action and plan. 

e. Foreseeing and thwarting all obstacles. 

f . Achieving speed to win. 

The President's executives have labored with 
equivalent difficulties. 



[H6j 



To Avoid Sacrifice — 
Perhaps Defeat — 

Eliminate : 

Government by coequals and titles. 
Government by debating society committees. 
Government by followers instead of leaders. 
Government by hindsight and complacency. 
Government by chance and request. 
Government by installments. 
Government by prejudice and inflexibility. 
Government by censorship. 
Government by delajr and hesitation. 

Correct fundamental organization principles 
let details take care of themselves. 

For victory's sake: — 

The American public confidently awaits this 
achievement from a sympathetic Congress assist- 
ing unselfish executives. 



[117] 



Must the Public 
Now Force the Remedy? 

We must strengthen the two weakest spots of the 
national executive system: 

a. Between the President and the 
complex group of executives and ad- 
ministrators dependent upon his deci- 
sions and policies. 

b. Between the leading executives 
and their righthand men dependent 
upon their chiefs' decisions and plans. 

By 

Having each executive free from detail. 

Giving each executive condensed, sifted vital 
information. 

Organizing each executive for and with instant 
daily decisions. 

Providing each executive with careful plans, 
studied policies, organized suggestions. 

Supporting each executive with constructive 
vision, operating efficiency. 

Demanding of each executive adequate checks 
and safeguards against failure, oversight, 
misunderstanding, scandal, scarcity and delay. 

Requiring each executive to know what is most 
urgent each day — and months ahead. 

Furnishing each executive with the right man for 
the right place — systematically. 

And 
Providing more concentrated authority. 



[118] 



Authority 

The information given in this pamphlet is 
based upon facts, experiences and sugges- 
tions resulting from nine months in War 
Washington. The assistance of a staff of 
trained investigators, statisticians and aids 
has been utilized at a cost of many thousands 
of dollars contributed by a private citizen 
with no axe to grind, anxious solely to serve 
his country constructively, without fear or 
favor, in this time of need. The organization 
problem has received the attention of several 
men familiar, through successful construc- 
tive business experience in both large and 
small corporations, with the principles of 
organization and their application. 



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